New Marketing and Communications Roles: What Are They And How Can Businesses Recruit for Them?
As we’ve explored in recent blogs, 2025 is likely to bring considerable change to our specialist markets. A combination of emerging new platforms alongside evolving customer expectations and behaviours will force the adaptation of existing marcomms job requirements, and create entirely new positions.
But what are some of these emerging marketing and communications roles and how can employers recruit for them effectively?
New marketing and communications roles
These new positions will reflect some of the likely focus areas for many businesses in the coming year, notably sustainability, and AI:
AI marketing and content strategists
AI will play an increasingly pivotal role for the majority of commercial businesses and will probably drive the biggest changes to the world of employment seen since the Industrial Revolution. Organisations will no doubt be keen to capitalise on its potential and will not want to trail behind competitors that are early adopters of these technologies. We’ve already noted a significant increase in demand for AI skills which has been reflected across the wider market. And particularly highly sought after are marketing strategists along with professionals in areas including brief writing and ideation whose responsibilities focus on developing detailed, market-specific instructions for platforms to enact.
Digital ethics managers
Anyone with even a passing interest in AI will be able to tell you that it’s an ethical minefield, and that’s before real mainstream adoption. All existing GenAI tools ultimately utilise somebody else’s intellectual property, and there are particularly significant concerns around image generation platforms and the impact they will have on the content development. This creates a challenging situation for organisations and their legal counsels who will have to navigate what is likely to become an increasingly regulated market. Firms that operate across borders may also have to deal with varying international legislation on top of this and will seek specialists with expert communication skills who can link between marcomms and legal departments to advise on operating in line with these policies.
Metaverse and AR marketing specialists
More and more brands are entering virtual spaces and adopting AR and VR tools to highlight potential uses of products to their customers. This growing demand naturally drives a parallel need for marketing and communications specialists who also possess digital expertise to build out platforms, manage virtual campaigns and leverage other emerging tools. These include the likes of voice search optimisation, digital twinning and haptic technology that are designed to support fully immersive experiences. As the markets are in their infancy, there is limited depth to existing talent pools, particularly with those with a combination of technical and marketing know-how.
Blockchain marketing strategist
Another emerging technology that holds the potential to reshape the digital marketing market, in particular, is blockchain. The increasing digitalisation of day-to-day life is creating more opportunities for cybercriminals to thrive, and many brands have noted a subsequent loss of trust from their customers after high-profile breaches. Blockchain provides solutions for areas like fraud prevention and can help organisations by enhancing security, transparency and trust. Brands in markets such as retail can implement solutions designed to eliminate bot traffic and verify ad impressions, for example, which also helps to boost ad spend efficiency. Essentially, blockchain can help businesses improve their security and rebuild customer loyalty in an increasingly tech-savvy and privacy-conscious world. Again, those with the combination of technical expertise to implement solutions, and marketing skills to enable campaigns to meet customer expectations, will be in significant demand as these technologies become more common.
Sustainability comms managers
Outside of technology, another key area of focus across all sectors will be sustainability. Climate science is still challenging to explain in layman’s terms and the proliferation of ‘fake news’, particularly on social media, is only fanning the flames. It’s becoming increasingly clear that climate change is a reality and organisations will have to react to anticipated policy shifts in the future and find ways to cut through the noise and get their messages heard. More employers will seek marcomms professionals who are focused specifically on sustainability and who can align communications with organisational ESG goals. This is critical in a field where fatigue is taking over, and the impact of many existing initiatives is beginning to wear thin.
Employers already face significant struggles sourcing the marketing and communications talent they need in what remains a skill-short market, and the emergence of new roles will likely heighten demand further. There will, of course, still be a need for specialists, but the impact of the AI revolution will mean those with a broader combination of marcomms and technical expertise will be particularly highly sought after.
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If your organisation is looking to source marcomms professionals who can help you navigate this changing environment, speak to our expert team.
