At the beginning of the year, PAN Communications shared its third annual CMO Predictions report, featuring industry leaders’ expectations of what the marketing landscape would look like in 2020 and upcoming challenges and trends. Saying that the situation has changed since then would be an understatement, to say the least, and the marketing firm has gone back to participants of the original study to see how their approach to marketing has changed as the year progressed.

Prior to the pandemic, marketers surveyed listed content overload as a top challenge. It remains so today, but adjusting the style, tone and topic of content has become a new challenge during COVID-19.

The company reports that customers want brands to adjust the way they are communicating to become more personalized and sensitive to their evolving needs. In fact, 66 percent of respondents in its May 2020 survey agreed that transparency and communication from key executives positively impacts their level of trust in the overall brand.

PAN Communications says that a common thread among marketers in its report was an effort to bring a stronger sense of empathy and compassion into their customer interactions and re-thinking content strategies to build emotional connections with audiences. Brands are responding to these demands, with 79.6 percent citing “adjusting the tone of our messaging and positioning” as a top priority coming out of the global crisis.

Click here for more of the company’s findings.