Marketers Struggling to Reinvent Themselves, Adobe Study Reveals

While two in five (40%) marketers stated that they want to reinvent themselves, only 14% of those marketers actually know how to go about it, according to research released from Adobe. The study, Digital Roadblock: Marketers Struggle to Reinvent Themselves, is based on a survey of more than 1,000 marketing professionals in the U.S. and exposes fresh insights into the attitudes and beliefs of marketers as they struggle to redefine their roles and expand their skills. The findings are being released at Adobe’s 12th annual Digital Marketing Summit, a conference attracting over 5,000 marketing professionals.

Underscoring the rapid transformation of the marketing profession, 64% of marketers expect their role to change in the next year and 81% believe their role will change in the next three years. But the path to reinvention remains a challenge. Respondents cited lack of training in new marketing skills (30%) and organizational inability to adapt (30%) among the top obstacles to becoming the marketers they aspire to be.

“The shift to digital requires new technology, new approaches and, in many cases, entirely new roles for marketers,” said Ann Lewnes, chief marketing officer for Adobe.  “The good news is that marketers see the change in front of them, and understand they need to embrace data, focus on creating personalized experiences and work across their social, Web and mobile channels.  They just need to take the plunge.” 

Asked to describe the ideal, successful marketer 12 months from now, 54% of marketers said they should take more risks, and 45% hope to take more risks themselves. On the topic of new technologies, marketers are generally playing it safe, with 65% saying they are more comfortable adopting new technologies once they become mainstream.

The findings also highlighted a gap between marketers in companies that spend more than 25% of their marketing budget on digital campaigns compared to those that spend less than 10% on digital. Marketers in high digital-spend companies are more likely to believe (82%) they need to reinvent themselves to succeed, versus low digital-spend companies (67%). Marketers from high-performing companies are three times more likely (23%) to say they know how to reinvent themselves than low performers (8%).