Some argued that organizations already have storytellers and should simply give them the freedom to practice their skills. Others celebrated storytelling as a newly recognized strategic skill, essential in a world saturated with AI-generated content.
Both sides are partly right, but both miss the deeper issue: what companies are struggling with isn’t storytelling. It makes sense.
Why storytelling suddenly feels urgent
The growing interest in storytelling roles is not just about telling stories around the campfire, creating brand myths or exercising creative flair. It’s not just that more marketers are adding storytelling skills to their resumes, or that more companies want marketers with those skills.
Rather, it is a response to a more uncomfortable reality.
Marketing for modern businesses has become fragmented. What we knew a decade ago largely no longer applies, and we’re still learning how to deal with a host of new normals, like these:
- Channels are fragmented.
- Customer journeys are non-linear.
- Messages are produced on a large scale.
- AI has made content cheap, fast and plentiful, but not more meaningful.
What is in short supply now is not content or attention. The connection with the context.
Customers, employees and investors are swimming in information, but struggle to understand what it all means. When meaning disappears, trust leaves the building.
Hiring storytellers is a proxy move. It’s a signal that something seems disconnected, but leaders can’t quite articulate what it is.
The consent argument and where it falls short
A popular response to the WSJ article stated that companies already employ capable storytellers. They just need to loosen their grip on the message. Storytellers need fewer restrictions, fewer style guides, and fewer layers of approval.
In other words: stand back and let us do what we do best. They’re not wrong either.
Corporate environments are excellent at sanding down the edges of anything human. But giving marketers permission to be more creative isn’t enough to create effective storytelling.
Being articulate or creative is important. But it doesn’t automatically mean that someone can create compelling stories in a business environment. The skills are different. A storyteller must be able to create in a structured business environment with these requirements:
- Structure the story over time.
- Create relevance without distortion.
- Translate complexity without simplifying.
- Align emotion with intention rather than manipulation.
Freedom helps marketers unleash their creativity. But it does not replace the need to create understanding and context.
The strategic storytelling argument and its hidden risk
The other storytelling camp views storytelling as a strategic business skill – something that marketers can anchor, scale and operationalize.
Again, not wrong. But this framing introduces a quieter danger.
Storytelling can become performative when the creativity that underlies it is linked to business conventions. When storytelling becomes a department, a job title, or a repeatable process whose value is measured by irrelevant KPIs, it steals the magic that sets storytelling apart from other business skills.
Does this sound familiar? It goes back to the age-old tug-of-war between strategy and tactics. When we use storytelling to advance a strategy, we are more likely to create meaningful stories. When we reduce it to a tactic, we take the magic out of the process.
The result is inevitable: organizations create beautifully written stories that feel hollow because they optimize on output rather than belief. Explanation replaces meaning. Polished stories replace familiar stories.
This is how brands ultimately talk bee people instead of helping them understand.
What storytelling really does in the brain
Stories in a business context don’t work just because they’re entertaining. They work because they fit the way people process the world.
Our brains are constantly asking questions like these:
- What’s going on here?
- Why is this important to me?
- What should I expect next?
Stories organize information into cause and effect. They help us resolve uncertainty and reduce cognitive load. They allow us to simulate results without risk.
In other words, storytelling is not a creative flourish. It is a cognitive aid.
That’s why it shows up everywhere: in leadership, product stories, customer experience, marketing and culture. That’s also why its absence feels so destabilizing.
The real problem companies need to solve
Most organizations don’t need more storytellers. This is what they need:
- Clearer internal stories.
- Fewer conflicting signals.
- Shared understanding of who they are and why they exist.
- Messages that connect to lived experiences.
Until these foundations are laid, storytelling efforts will feel forced, no matter how talented the people are.
This also explains the irony I saw in the WSJ article.
Companies want the outcomes of storytelling – trust, clarity, connection – without accepting the uncertainty that real stories bring. They want narrative control without unpredictability. Humanity without ambiguity.
But that’s not how stories work. That brings me to my last point.
Storytelling is not the answer. Creating meaning is.
The current obsession with storytelling is a symptom, not a solution. Whether they realize it or not, companies are really looking for meaning:
- This means that customers can recognize it.
- This means that employees can believe.
- That means it holds up under pressure.
Without meaning in these forms, storytelling becomes a self-indulgent ornament. It doesn’t build brand equity or trust.
No job title, no matter how fashionable, can solve this.
Energize yourself with free marketing insights.
Contributing authors are invited to create content for MarTech and are chosen for their expertise and contribution to the martech community. Our contributors work under the supervision of the editors and contributions are checked for quality and relevance to our readers. MarTech is owned by Semrush. The contributor was not asked to make any direct or indirect mentions of it Semrush. The opinions they express are their own.
#Companies #arent #storytellers #meaning #MarTech