The Wall Street Journal‘s recent article, “Companies are Desperately Seeking Storytellers,” exploded on LinkedIn the day it appeared. Marketers reacted strongly – and were sharply divided. Some insisted that organizations already employ plenty of storytellers and simply need to empower them to use their craft. Others hailed storytelling as a newly validated strategic capability, crucial in a marketplace flooded with AI-generated content. Both perspectives contain some truth, yet both overlook the core problem: The real challenge for companies isn’t storytelling. It’s sense-making.
Why storytelling suddenly feels so critical
The surge of interest in storytelling roles isn’t really about spinning campfire tales, inventing brand legends or indulging in creativity for its own sake. It’s not only that more marketers are touting storytelling on their resumes, or that more employers are seeking marketers who claim that expertise. It’s a reaction to a more unsettling shift.
Modern marketing has become deeply fragmented. Much of what worked a decade ago no longer holds, and we’re still figuring out how to navigate a series of new realities, such as:
- Channels are fractured.
- Customer journeys are messy and non-linear.
- Messages are generated at massive scale.
- AI has made content cheap, fast and plentiful – but not inherently more meaningful.
What’s rare now isn’t content or even attention. It’s coherence with context. Customers, employees and investors are drowning in information yet struggling to piece together what it all adds up to. When meaning erodes, trust walks out the door.
Hiring storytellers is a stand-in solution. It signals that something in the narrative feels off or disconnected, but leaders…