Tesco, AI and the Spring Statement

Welcome to The Uncertain Times. This week’s stories share an unlikely thread: the most valuable asset in 2026 isn’t a technology platform or a media budget. It’s the human capability to lead, connect and communicate through complexity. Tesco proved it with a campaign that feels like a conversation. The data confirmed it with a skills gap hiding a £3bn opportunity. And Rachel Reeves reminded us – deliberately or otherwise – that no forecast survives contact with the real world.

This week, we unpack:

The power of the colloquial: Why Tesco is leaning into community to evolve its iconic slogan
The gender gap: Why rising female unemployment is a £3bn missed opportunity for the UK
The AI skill-set shift: Why ‘soft’ is the new ‘hard’ in the 2026 job market
The OpenAI boycott: Is this the beginning of the end for ChatGPT?
The Spring Statement: Recalibrating marketing spend against the latest fiscal markers

Need Anything From Tesco?

‘Every Little Helps’ is, by any measure, one of the most enduring slogans in British retail history. So when Tesco and BBH set out to evolve it, the stakes were high.

Their answer: ‘Need anything from Tesco?’ – a question so ordinary, so familiar, that it barely sounds like advertising at all. That’s exactly the point.

The hero film, directed by Tore Frandsen and set to New Order’s Blue Monday, centres on a relatable family and the very British chaos of the everyday. It’s warm, funny and deliberately undramatic. The campaign spans TV, social, print, OOH and radio, and is woven into Tesco’s Britain’s Got Talent sponsorship.

What makes it smart is what it doesn’t do. It doesn’t abandon its heritage – it contextualises it. Rather than replacing the iconic ‘Every Little Helps’, this campaign breathes new life into it by transforming a uniquely British colloquialism into a powerful expression of their brand purpose.

The StrategiQ Takeaway: This isn’t just a clever line – it’s a strategic pivot toward community and connection. By moving the brand from a passive promise to an active conversation, Tesco is building on the long-term strength of its identity while staying relevant to the human-first trend of 2026. We could all do with some humour, connection and stability right now. This campaign arrives at exactly the right time.

What a way to make a living: The gender gap, rising unemployment and the skills the AI era actually needs

Two datasets landed this week that belong in the same conversation.

ThePwC Women in Work 2026 report reveals that female unemployment in the UK is rising for the first time in years – particularly among young women in London. The global economic slowdown is pushing up unemployment across OECD countries, and women are bearing a disproportionate share of it.

The numbers are striking. 60% of jobs are set to be impacted by AI – and women are more exposed to that transition than men, yet significantly less equipped for it. 57% of men are already using generative AI at work, compared to just 32% of women. Closing that gap to 2021 employment levels represents a £3bn opportunity for the UK economy alone.

Separately,LinkedIn’s Skills on the Rise 2026 report mapped the fastest-growing skills employers are actually hiring for right now. The list is worth sitting with:

In marketing specifically:

Visual storytelling
Performance analysis
AI literacy
Cross-functional collaboration
And digital campaigns.

Across the broader job market:

AI and generative tech
Data strategy
Operational resilience
Commercial intelligence
Leadership, culture and communication.

Soft skills matter in the AI era

Here’s the thing that often gets lost in the AI conversation: the fastest-growing UK skillsets aren’t purely technical. Alongside Prompt Engineering and Data Storytelling, we’re seeing a surge in demand for cross-functional collaboration, relationship management and cross-cultural communication.

Skills for roles in AI-exposed sectors are evolving 66% faster than other sectors. To thrive, we don’t just need to know how to use the tools. We also need to lead through uncertainty, communicate across complexity and build trust in hybrid, global, specialist teams.

The StrategiQ takeaway: As teams become more hybrid, more global and more specialised, human craft becomes a competitive advantage. The skill gap isn’t just a social issue. It’s a commercial one. Technology fuels our speed. Human strategy leads our direction.

Looking for a team that values human craft in a digital world? Explore our current career opportunities.

The OpenAI boycott: Is this the beginning of the end for ChatGPT?

Our Strategy Director, Tristan Sanders, weighs in:

Another week, another worrying precedent from the current US administration. Another sweeping statement that has left those impacted scratching their heads as to how an instrument so blunt can be made workable in practice.

By labelling Anthropic as a “supply-chain risk to national security”, Pete Hesgeth has presented the Department of War (DoW) as the instigators of the split with Anthropic and its AI technology.

But the statement goes further, stating that no contractor that uses Anthopic’s technologies in any way will be in line for future Pentagon contracts. This poses major questions for the likes of Google, Nvidia and Amazon – all major Anthropic investors. As is often the case with this government, we must wait and see how this latest grand statement plays out in the Real World.

This decision is representative of procurement, weaponised. By cutting out one of the industry leaders, the US is not maximising its huge competitive advantage in the AI space. Nevertheless, it’s a price the DoW seems willing to pay. If you’re not in lockstep with this US government, you’re out.

The StrategiQ Takeaway:

“As for any boycott of ChatGPT, sadly I see this as only fleeting. Even if a movement starts to catch on, Chat GPT will only represent a slither of how OpenAI makes money. OpenAI’s president, Greg Brockman, has already donated $25m to Trump. They know which way the wind is blowing.”

A note on Anthropic

Anthropic was founded by a group of former OpenAI founders and employees. They left when the company pivoted away from its original, non-profit roots to become the profit driven company it is today.

The roll-out of advertising across several of the LLM chatbot platforms has been ridiculed by Anthropic in their recent superbowl ad campaign. However, as I have written in my recent article, the fuss around the impact of ads misses the bigger picture: ads, either within the chatbot outputs (satirised by Anthropic, but not actually happening) or sat around the outputs (a la PPC listings in Google, happening), are not going to be the main revenue stream for these platforms.

Contracts with big med for diagnostics, big pharma for drug discovery, automotive for driverless cars and defence, are. Just like the one $200m one that Anthropic had with the US Department of War.

Concerns around the likelihood of profound moral disagreements pertaining to the application of AI in situations relating to defence were one of the key issues that drove the split between the founders of OpenAI that led to the founding of Anthropic. As such, when the US government (and not just any US government) came calling, Anthropic was immediately put in an impossible position.

Anthropic are neither ‘radical left‘ or ‘woke‘. But they nevertheless find themselves hamstrung, at least for the remaining three years of this administration. And by the time it can do much about it, the AI game may have irretrievably moved on.

The Spring Statement: What it means for your marketing investment

The OBR updated its forecasts. The headlines:

GDP growth of 1.1% in 2026, revised down from the 1.4% forecast in November, then recovering to 1.6% in both 2027 and 2028
Unemployment peaks later this year at 5.3%, before falling gradually to 4.1% by 2030
Borrowing is down nearly £18bn against the autumn forecast.

There were no major tax or spending announcements. Reeves has committed to a single annual fiscal event, and this was an update, not a budget.

But the context around it matters. Reeves framed the statement against “a world that has become yet more uncertain in the last few days” – a reference to escalating conflict in the Middle East. That conflict is already affecting energy prices and rate expectations. The OBR’s forecasts were drawn up beforehand, which adds another variable.

For UK businesses planning marketing investment across the rest of Q1 and into Q2, the picture is one of cautious stability. Growth is slower than hoped, but it is growth.

The StrategiQ takeaway: A slower growth environment is not an argument for cutting brand investment. It’s an argument for making it work harder. Brands that maintain share of voice when their category pulls back are the ones that emerge from the other side with stronger positions. The Spring Statement didn’t change the direction of travel. But it’s a reminder that efficiency, proof of value and commercial clarity have never mattered more.

“In a slower growth economy every pound of marketing has to work harder. That means combining brand strength with commercial discipline…visibility, proof of value and a clear line between marketing activity and business outcomes.” – Will Anderson, Chief Growth Officer, StrategiQ

The StrategiQ takeaway

From a supermarket making connection feel radical, to a workforce skills gap hiding a £3bn opportunity – this week’s stories all point to the same truth. The businesses that will stay resilient are the ones that invest in human strategy now, build brand equity that compounds, and stay close enough to the shifting landscape to move when it matters.

Whether you’re navigating a rebrand, recalibrating your team for the AI era, or making the case for marketing investment in a slower growth environment…

IT’S ALWAYS STRATEGY.

Sources:

Soft skills, sharp strategy and a supermarket that gets it