Why editorial marketing is becoming the new competitive advantage
Two things emerged when we asked leaders about the hardest parts of running content. The first was getting experts to contribute at all.
Senior marketerGlobal Marketing Leaders Content Study 2026It's surprisingly difficult to encourage people to contribute their expertise without worrying about being judged or criticised.
The second was what happens when they do.
Senior marketerGlobal Marketing Leaders Content Study 2026It's challenging to maintain a strong editorial point of view while accommodating feedback from multiple stakeholders.
This matters because the stakes are high. The differentiating insight marketers need already exists within their organisations, in the thinking of CIOs, portfolio managers, researchers and sector specialists — people whose views are shaped by decades of market experience, access to proprietary data and relationships built over years of direct client and industry engagement. Those perspectives cannot be replicated by a competitor or an AI model.
The problem is, too often, marketing teams are not empowered to turn that expertise into a competitive storytelling advantage. They tidy up what they are given by the experts and rarely push back when their own editorial judgment is overridden. Experts, meanwhile, can be reluctant contributors because they worry about how their thinking will land, or whether storytelling means compromising their viewpoint.
These are cultural problems, not operational ones.
The organisations that have overcome this challenge share one characteristic: clarity about who owns what. The expert owns the idea and the intellectual credibility behind it. The marketing team owns how that idea reaches an audience. This includes the framing, the narrative and the final call on whether it is ready to go out. They treat their experts the way a great newsroom treats its best columnists or anchors, giving them a platform and drawing out their knowledge, while taking responsibility for how it lands.
Satwant WishartPandher Wishart StudiosOne leader I spoke with told me that executive compensation in their organisation is now directly linked to their contribution to marketing and storytelling.
That tells you everything about where this is heading.
The differentiation factor
Satwant Wishart and Gareth Lofthouse discuss discuss what will set the strongest content teams apart, and why judgment, originality and storytelling matter more than ever.
Speakers: Gareth Lofthouse, Founder & MD, Resonant and Satwant Wishart, Founder & CEO, Pandher Wishart Studios
Gareth Lofthouse
First thing is good news, there isn't a job sort of apocalypse in the content team. There's very few, around about 10% say that their team has shrunk in the last 18 months.
However, let's not underestimate the scale of change underway. Nearly all teams are restructuring in some shape or form. What does this mean for the skill sets that companies are going to be investing in?
Satwant Wishart
So when we ask what were becoming most important to them, first, it was editorial judgment, then those with research skills and third, storytelling, and fourth, AI fluency. Those marketers who are going to have a job in a few years time, ultimately, they're going to be the ones who know what good looks like.
So using AI to create content, but having the ability to know when it's being generic, when we should use it, and when ultimately maybe we shouldn't be producing something as well.
Gareth Lofthouse
You've got to be super critical about anything you're getting back. That's not just is it factually accurate? Is it good enough? Is it interesting? Is it compelling? And those are only going to come from people with talent in the organisation to drive.
Satwant Wishart
And why storytelling is so important? Well, if we're struggling with differentiation, we need to be able to tell stories in order to be remembered, because when we are remembered, we are trusted.
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