- 75% of marketing professionals view a bold brand presence as critical to success
- 81% expect boldness in marketing to gain importance over the next five years
- Only 8% of respondents actually pursue bold marketing decisions
August 28, 2025, Cologne – DMEXCO, Europe’s leading digital marketing & tech event, in collaboration with the market and opinion research institute Civey, surveyed 500 marketing and communications professionals on the role and impact of boldness in marketing. The results are clear: the majority of respondents see a bold brand presence as decisive for success. However, bold marketing decisions are still rarely put into practice.
A Call for Greater Boldness and Innovation
“Be Bold. Move Forward.” is this year’s DMEXCO motto. It is a call for more courage and determination in developing groundbreaking future technologies and successful marketing strategies. As the central industry platform and driver of innovation, DMEXCO will bring together thought leaders and decision-makers in digital marketing and tech on September 17 and 18, 2025. The event not only showcases trendsetters and solution providers but actively shapes the digital future.
Boldness as a Success Factor
According to the study, boldness in marketing will become increasingly important in the years ahead. Four out of five professionals said it will be more crucial to be bold in marketing over the next five years. For 75 percent of participants, a risk-taking brand presence also leads to greater long-term business success. Fewer than 6 per-cent disagreed with this statement.
The Gap Between Knowledge and Action
Although three-quarters of respondents see boldness as a decisive success factor for the future, bold marketing decisions remain the exception. Only 8 percent said they had communicated in a strikingly bold way. Even fewer had launched a risky adverti-
sing campaign (6.6%), radically changed their brand identity (5.7%), or taken a controversial stance (5%). These figures stand in stark contrast to self-per-ception: around 64 percent of respondents consider themselves bold in their marke-ting decisions, with more than one in four (26.4%) explicitly describing themselves as bold. Only 15 percent rated themselves as rather cautious.
The boldest decisions reported included expansion into a new market (17.4%), addres-sing untapped target groups (10.7%), and public commitment to a good cause (8.8%). Three main reasons cited for holding back were almost evenly distributed: fear of social media backlash (47%), concern for brand image (45.6%), and legal uncertainties (45%). Nearly 30 percent also mentioned internal resistance.
Boldness Pays Off
80 percent of respondents believe that consumers are more likely to remember bold brand appearances. “Strong campaigns stay top of mind,” comments Verena Gründel, Host and Director Brands & Communications at DMEXCO. “Boldness is the decisive lever for visibility and growth in marketing. In a time when AI-generated content can be created in seconds, we need human creativity, emotion, and a clear stance to avoid disappearing into interchangeability. Boldness is the fuel that catapults brands out of comparability and firmly anchors them in people’s minds. Not acting boldly is simply not an option.”
Anke Herbener, Vice President at the German Association for the Digital Economy (BVDW) e.V., also calls for more courage in marketing: “New technologies and me-gatrends like cultural marketing open up enormous opportunities for Germany’s cre-ative industry. Yet there remains a gap between the desire for bold ideas and their execution. This applies to advertisers and agencies alike. DMEXCO addresses exactly this: showing why boldness in marketing is becoming a success factor, especially in uncertain times.”
This year’s DMEXCO stages will feature numerous high-profile bold leaders and thought-starters. Among them: Rik Strubel (CMO Douglas), Courtney Bailey (Global Content Marketing Lead Meta), Sabine Jünger (VP Advertising OTTO), Ivan Ponce Gómez (Director of Go-to-Market Marketing & Media Zalando), Olivier Krüger (CMO Lufthansa Group), and Michael Komasinski (CEO Criteo). All of them will share bold impulses and encourage participants of Europe’s leading digital marketing & tech bu-siness event to act with initiative and courage. More highlights can be found in the current conference program.
Methodology
On behalf of DMEXCO, Civey conducted an online survey of 500 professionals from the fields of marketing and communications between July 1 and July 27, 2025. The results are representative due to quotas and weighting, taking into account a statis-tical margin of error of 8.3 to 11 percentage points for each overall result. Further information on the methodology can be found here.
About DMEXCO
DMEXCO is Europe’s leading digital marketing & tech event. We are a community and a central gathering place for all key players in the digital economy and the spheres of marketing and innovation. We bring together industry leaders, marketing and media professionals, and tech pioneers in one central location to collectively set the digital agenda. DMEXCO offers a comprehensive ecosystem featuring presentations from internationally renowned speakers, exhibitions from top brands and hands-on masterclasses – all centered around digital trends and future business opportunities.
Both in Cologne and online, we set the benchmark as the go-to networking and business platform for the digital economy. At DMEXCO, decision-makers gain valuable insights, draw inspiration, make contacts and seal deals. This is where the digital business landscape of tomorrow unfolds today. The 2025 edition of the event will take place in Cologne on September 17 and 18.
With the launch of DMEXCO ASIA, DMEXCO is making its first expansion into the international market this year. Hosted as part of Tech Week Singapore in partnership with eCommerce Expo, the event will set trends in the Southeast Asian and Pacific market and serve as a platform for the Asian digital economy. eCommerce Expo | DMEXCO ASIA will debut on October 8–9, 2025.
The German Association for the Digital Economy (BVDW) – together with the online marketing association Online-Vermarkterkreis (OVK) – is the ideational and professional partner of DMEXCO and owner of the DMEXCO brand. DMEXCO is organized by Koelnmesse.
Image material on DMEXCO is available online at https://go.dmexco.com/de/press-downloads-dmexco.
Media contact
Elena Fischer
PR & Media Relations Manager DMEXCO
Email: elena.fischer@dmexco.com
Phone: +49 17612562802
