Introducing our latest content marketing research, CMI's Stephanie Stahl wrote:
“While many [companies] Despite simply treading water, a group of top performers have found a way to move forward. They’ve figured out how to understand their audience’s needs, produce high-quality content, and create more efficient workflows using AI.”
I say “Yes and…” given our training, consulting and consulting work with over 20 successful brands last year.
B2B marketing has had an interesting year. While it has become more strategic and focused on the long term, the short term plan has been destroyed. A recent research report quoted a CMO as saying, “The traditional B2B approach that worked for so many years is no longer working to grow and meet demand.”
In the last two years, I have seen at least three significant disruptions that suggest where content and marketing could be heading. Recognizing the impact of these disruptions can help you plan for the future of content and marketing.
Disturbance 1: Customer media consumption and the importance of the brand
Wow, that sounds important, doesn't it? That's just a fancy way of saying that things are moving faster, people have more choice in content, and trust in brand experiences is playing a bigger role in generating demand and creating loyalty.
Now you are undoubtedly aware of the shift in the way people consume and spend time with content. I recently shared some of these points in a news video and article:
But don't make the mistake of assuming that these statistics mean that short, provocative social media videos designed solely to grab attention are the only content that gets traction.
People’s attention spans haven’t decreased – their patience with values has. If you can capture customers' attention through quick value creation, you have the opportunity to create a differentiating experience.
This trend also suggests that patience is waning with anything that interrupts the flow of engagement. For example, a recent study found that people rarely answer half of unidentified calls on their cell phones.
Not only do people not like interruptions, they also know that they can easily replace any content. Don't like the TikTok video? Swipe up. Don't like this Netflix show? Leave it straight away and dive into something else. Not getting the sources you need within seconds of searching? Ask the AI for the answer.
The impact of this disruption on the brand fascinates me. This lack of patience and ease of sourcing replacement content negates some of the ability (and, some would say, the need) to build a brand legacy.
In 1958, the average lifespan of a company in the Standard & Poor's index was 67 years. Sixty years later it had dropped to less than 15 years.
Product and service brands develop into start-ups, fashion or media. Brands enter the market, gain recognition, gain the trust of the audience, and then fall out of favor, lose popularity, or are replaced by something new.
Ironically, the push to be present on multiple content platforms has led some brands to take a more minimalist approach to corporate branding – what many now refer to as “boring.”
Interestingly, successful companies tend to launch or acquire content brands and use them like shiny media attractors.
These specific brand experiences are designed to do the heavy lifting in the short term, taking advantage of the short lifespan of brands in general. These content brands aim to create instant trust and deep engagement. However, they can be discarded if they fail to achieve their goals or go out of style.
For example, fast food manufacturer Chick-fil-A recently launched a new streaming service. However, this is not so much a streaming service as an attempt to create new shows (i.e. content brands) that could be distributed across any number of digital platforms.
This leads to the second problem.
Disorder 2: Lack of physical presence
Everyone has realized how valuable physical presence is. There's nothing like taking something away to show you how much you appreciate it.
The rapid growth of remote work, freelance work, and part-time work has changed our cultural mindset. People have developed a strong preference for maintaining physical separation. And this makes personal contacts feel special and rare.
Simply put, people value their personal spaces and their surroundings more now than before.
More and more people are thinking, “I value working from home” or “Is my physical presence at my workplace worth more than it was before the pandemic?”
We also ask more critically whether we need to be somewhere in person because we would much rather be somewhere else physically. The saying “work is where the Wi-Fi is” is still widespread.
Some companies have requested that employees return to their offices. And participation in events (business and otherwise) has risen sharply.
However, the nature and quality of these events have changed to meet the increased demands of participants.
As physical presence becomes more important, in-person events (still one of the most effective content marketing tactics) have become luxuries. Therefore, the type of content in these events should be really good.
Perhaps less obvious, this trend is also putting renewed pressure on digital content experiences. Why? Because digital content platforms must also act as a proxy for physical presence.
All digital content (events, thought leadership, etc.) needs to be differentiated as audiences expect more and the content noise gets crazier.
B2B company Salesforce's investment in introducing Salesblazer shows this trend in practice. Years ago, Salesblazer might have started as a blog with sales news and trends.
But this award-winning project is a resource center, a blog, an educational platform and a community. It markets itself as the “largest and most successful community for sales.”
And that brings us to the third disruption.
Disturbance 3: Decline in trust and truth
As we approach the United States election, the world feels more divided than ever. Trust in mainstream media is at its lowest point ever. Whether from governments, corporations or nonprofits, an epidemic of misinformation has led to widespread distrust of institutions and their leaders. Generative AI exacerbates this loss of trust.
With the bar set this low, marketers have the opportunity (and perhaps the responsibility) to use content to build trust as a differentiator.
Good marketing creates value that customers invest in and can create wealth for the company. However, not every customer investment is linked to a purchase.
You can monetize marketing in different ways – through time, attention, referrals, personal data, brand loyalty and even trust. All of this can be converted into wealth for the company.
Content and marketing in 2025
When you put these three disruptions into context, you can see patterns for the future of marketing – if not the future of marketing.
The future of content and marketing is:
- The creation of trust and truth
- Differentiated digital and physical content experiences that meet increased audience expectations
- Deliver value quickly without interruptive communication, taking into account the audience's willingness to seek value in alternative forms of media
Content and marketing are evolving again. Both content strategy and marketing as a practice have the opportunity to become more valuable and enriching to the company – if we get out of their way.
What if content and marketing outcomes were treated as if they were just as important as the brand's products and services?
Would you spend the majority of your time optimizing things to create the most efficient process without regard to the quality of the result?
What if brands viewed marketing as more than just a spend line that develops activities and creates content to persuade audiences to become customers?
What if brands viewed marketing as a function that improves the entire customer journey, with the main function being to create experiences for audiences that could be monetized in various ways (of which purchasing products and services is just one )?
Put even more simply: What if the future of marketing is about adding value, monetizing audiences, and treating content as important as brands' products?
Fifty years ago, Dennis Gabor, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist, wrote in Inventing the Future:
“Rational thought cannot predict the future, even when aided by any electronic computer…All it can do is represent probability…Technological and social inventions continually expand that probability…” The future cannot be predicted, but futures can be invented.”
In 2025, great marketing isn't invented on the fly. It is invented by us.
It's your story. Say it well.
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Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute
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