Businesses have been slow to adapt their marketing efforts to new challenges, reports content marketing firm Skyword and market research consultancy Researchscape International in their examination of marketing trends, “A Study In Brand Transformation.” Surveying 190 marketing leaders at B2C and B2B organizations, they found that only 38 percent of enterprise brands have restructured their marketing teams to overcome new marketing challenges.

“Consumers today do not have patience for traditional advertising and marketing techniques, yet they are consuming digital content at an unprecedented pace,” says Patricia Travaline, CMO of Skyword. “They gravitate toward stories that make an emotional impact on their lives—whether that is through Netflix, CNN or story-driven brands like New Balance and IBM. Creating experiences that people will love requires a new way of thinking about the customer, building a marketing plan and strategy, and operating as a team.

She adds that research results show that marketers are laying the foundation of digital transformation. “They are just beginning to shift their resources away from traditional interruptive marketing to sustained storytelling and publishing.”

The company’s research identified transformative organizations as those that have shifted their marketing investment toward new technology, new roles and skillsets, content marketing, communicating their brand story and developing a global marketing strategy.

“Building a story-driven marketing strategy takes more than hiring a content marketer or adopting a new platform. It requires transformation in the overall culture, structure and processes of the marketing organization,” says Tom Gerace, CEO and founder of Skyword. “For brands to make an impact, marketers need to see their audiences in a new light, and play a broader role in their everyday lives by developing a marketing plan that responds to the information and entertainment needs of those customers.”

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