Companies aren't looking for storytellers. They're looking for meaning. | MarTech

"Rather, it's a response to a more uncomfortable reality. Marketing for modern businesses has become fragmented. What we knew just 10 years ago largely doesn't apply anymore, and we're still learning how to deal with a host of new normals, like these: Channels are splintered. Customer journeys are non-linear. Messaging is produced at scale. AI has made content cheap, fast and abundant, but not more meaningful."

"Marketer reactions were heated - and split right down the middle. Some argued that organizations already have storytellers and simply need to give them the freedom to exercise their skills. Others celebrated storytelling as a newly recognized strategic skill, essential in a world saturated with AI-generated content. Both sides are partially correct, but both miss the deeper issue: What companies are struggling with isn't storytelling. It's sense-making."

"What's scarce now isn't content or attention. Its coherence with context. Customers, employees and investors are swimming in information but struggling to understand what it all means. When meaning breaks down, trust exits the building. Hiring storytellers is a proxy move. It's a signal that something feels disconnected, but leaders can't quite articulate what it is. The permission argument and where it falls short One popular response to the WSJ article argued that companies already employ capable storytellers."

Marketing has become fragmented: channels splintered, customer journeys non-linear, messaging produced at scale, and AI making content abundant but not more meaningful. The scarcity now is coherence with context rather than content or attention. Customers, employees and investors face information overload and struggle to derive meaning, eroding trust when meaning breaks down. Hiring storytellers often serves as a proxy signal that organizational sense-making is failing. Granting permission to storytellers by loosening constraints addresses symptoms but overlooks the deeper need for organizational systems that enable coherent meaning-making across channels and stakeholders.

Read at MarTech