The new “brand advocates,” as Forrester suggests renaming the role, will be seemingly more powerful and consumer-centric, much nimbler, and more real-time-oriented than the brand manager of today — and they will be a lot more opportunistic in creating media partnerships, and a lot less loyal to their agencies.

Among the specific recommendations in its report, “Adaptive Brand Marketing: Rethinking Your Approach to Branding in the Digital Age,” Forrester suggests “brand advocates” be responsible for rapid adaptations of global brand platforms and programs, charging centralized global brand strategists with ensuring what local managers do conforms with the brand equity and strategy. It also advocates ditching the formal annual budgeting process and upfront media-specific allocations in favor of frequently updated, on-the-fly plans that adapt quickly as conditions change and money earmarked upfront for initiatives, not specific media.

Forrester recommends giving market research and analytics, dubbed “consumer intelligence” in the report, a much more prominent and central role, while focusing more on newer “predictive modeling” providers than on historical marketing-mix models to target spending.