Wednesday - 30 / 9 / 2026
Registration
A Gift for the First 100 Attendees! Receive a complimentary copy of „Building Distinctive Brand Assets“ by the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute.Speciál: Brands Powered by AI
This special afternoon session at Brand Management 2026 will explore how AI is transforming the way brands think about customers, content, creativity, and strategy. It will provide practical examples, fresh perspectives, and inspiration for brand and marketing managers who want to use artificial intelligence not merely as a tool for greater efficiency, but as a genuine driver of brand growth.
Branding in the Age of AI: When Experience Is Created in Real Time
What will it be about?AI is transforming brands far more profoundly than simply helping marketers create copy, images, or campaigns faster. It is changing the very nature of how people interact with brands. Customers no longer engage only with advertisements, websites, sales representatives, or customer support. Increasingly, they are communicating with algorithms, recommendation engines, chatbots, and personalized content generated in real time.
What does this mean for brands? How can they maintain their identity, tone of voice, and trustworthiness in an environment where communication is no longer planned entirely in advance but is continuously shaped by data, context, and customer needs? And where is the line between useful personalization and a brand that fragments into a thousand different versions of itself?
Digital marketer, marketing and AI enthusiast. Founder and Chief Digital Officer of PS:Digital and the largest marketing conference in Slovakia, Marketing RULEZZ.
He began his career as a marketing manager in several non-profit organizations. He later worked for the magazine Stratégie as an editor focused on digital marketing and as a creative director for digital projects. At Zoznam, he was responsible for new business development.
In 2014, he founded the agency PS:Digital, which quickly became one of the leading digital agencies in Slovakia and has been behind numerous successful campaigns recognized for their creativity, effectiveness, and digital PR. He regularly speaks at conferences and lectures at several universities.
Together with Gabo Tóth, he co-creates Buzzworld by Gabo a Peťo, the most-listened-to marketing podcast in Slovakia. Alongside Barbora Okrúhľanská, he is involved in the Digital Parents project and podcast, which has won the Podcast of the Year award in the leisure podcast category for three consecutive years.
In 2025, he received the Marketer of the Year award and currently leads his own educational project, AI Fitko.
When AI Can Create Anything, Taste Becomes Everything
What will it be about?In a world flooded with AI-generated content, the real challenge is no longer creating more. It is finding people with the taste to create, curate, and elevate what truly matters, what stands out, and what people will actually remember.
In this session, Pavlína will explore why taste is becoming the defining competitive advantage in the age of AI. She will show how it is reshaping who creates brands, how brands are built, and what marketers can do to stay relevant when technology makes production effortless but differentiation increasingly difficult.
Pavlína Louženská is the founder of TrendBrews, a trend forecasting agency focused on Central and Eastern Europe. More than 14,000 readers subscribe to her newsletter on trends and technology, pavlinaspeaks.substack.com, which was recognized by Substack as one of the Top 50 Rising in Business newsletters globally.
Her future-focused insights and predictions have been featured by Wired, ELLE, and TED. She serves on the advisory boards of several technology companies and non-profit organizations, including the Independent Press Foundation and Nekrachni. Pavlína is also the lead mentor for Google for Startups across Europe, Africa, and the Middle East.
Her work has earned multiple awards, including the European Citizen's Prize awarded by the European Parliament. In her spare time, she runs Singles Club, a speed-dating community for curious minds.
Networking
Thursday - 1 / 10 / 2026
Registration, networking
Part A
Branding in the Age of AI: From Promises to Experiences
What will it be about?AI is fundamentally reshaping customer loyalty—and with it, the very concept of branding.
Efficiency, seamless service, and personalization are becoming the new baseline. Brands that compete solely on these dimensions risk blending into the crowd.
In this keynote, Steven Van Belleghem explores how branding is shifting from visibility and promises to relationships and meaning. He introduces three levels of loyalty and explains why strong brands in the AI era will not be built through campaigns alone, but through thoughtful decisions that genuinely resonate with customers.
After all, the value of a brand lies not only in what it says, but in what it makes people feel—and what they remember about it.
Steven Van Belleghem is one of the world’s leading thinkers in customer experience. He is the author of six bestselling books and a globally sought-after keynote speaker. His latest book A Diamond in the Rough was named by Forbes as the number one must-read business book of 2024.
Steven has inspired global brands including Disney, Mastercard, Mercedes-Benz, Booking.com, Heineken, and Salesforce. He is the co-founder of Nexxworks and a part-time marketing professor at Vlerick Business School, as well as a guest speaker at London Business School.