Long Live the CMO
In recent years, the role of CMO has faced increasing scrutiny. A recent Fortune article hinted that the role is losing clout due to decreasing tenure and widespread elimination of the role among many major corporations. UPS, for example, has eliminated the position entirely, spreading important marketing responsibilities across multiple professionals within its organization.
This caught our attention at Chirp. Marketing’s impact on a company’s success is more prevalent than ever, so why is this key position becoming less prominent?
It boils down to one simple fact: Marketing is often misunderstood, and too often, organizations don’t prioritize it.
This should come as no surprise to anyone in the industry. Much like public relations, marketing isn’t as tangible as other aspects of a company’s operations – especially in the evolving digital age, but there are more opportunities than ever to track its success. It merely requires a new way of approaching the job, but luckily, new data, platforms, insights, and communication methods make it possible. While marketers have tried to keep pace, embrace and master these constant developments, they are coming at record speed. Organizations have lagged, placing much of the responsibility on their CMOs.
This has led to exceedingly ambiguous expectations, which has left the CMO role much less defined than when the title was first used in the 1990s.
Less than 40 years later, the inherently multidimensional CMO role now encompasses everything from brand management and advertising to customer experience and market research. As such, CMOs must possess an even more diverse and highly specialized skill set that includes creativity, analytical prowess, strategic thinking, interpersonal skills, data & analytics, and AI. The increasingly high expectations placed on the CMO role with little to no guidelines on what defines “success” results in senior business leaders losing confidence in this position and its leadership.
But this new trend isn’t the marketers’ fault – it’s the opposite.
We market to influence behaviors, change minds, and prove a brand’s significance – all to elicit action. People don’t move or change without marketing, and behaviors remain the same. Despite this powerful fact, senior leadership – even the C-Suite – often struggles to understand the inherent value that marketing has on a company’s operations and success. Finance is tangible. Operations can be understood. Marketing is as much an art as a science; it is difficult to measure and completely appreciate. CMOs constantly struggle to justify their budgets and prove the value of their contributions to the bottom line.
As a result, some companies have opted to eliminate the CMO role and disperse the responsibilities among other professionals. This should not be done lightly, as eliminating the role is not without its consequences. Marketing is not just “another department” within a company. It is a company’s lifeline that drives awareness, generates demand, and fosters customer loyalty. Working closely with the CCO/communications function, marketing also impacts a company’s reputation. Effective marketing means the difference between success and obscurity for a company. Eliminating this crucial position puts companies at risk of losing the strategic leadership and expertise needed to navigate the complexities of the modern marketplace.
Rather than eliminating this position, companies should shift their focus and redefine the role of CMO – clarifying their responsibilities and providing the necessary support and resources to succeed in the advanced digital age. At Chirp, we’ve seen how the CMO role continues to evolve with new expectations and capabilities necessary to build and protect a brand.
We’ve been fortunate enough to have partnered with several CMOs to deliver results that matter by building and protecting their company’s B2B brand, and we’re always ready to collaborate on their biggest challenges as well as the most trivial expectations. By embracing the complexity of this necessary business function and continuing to harness its power, companies can ensure that they remain a competitive powerhouse within their respective industry.
Need help with delivering tangible results? Give us a Chirp to see how we can help!
Source: HBR - https://hbr.org/2017/07/the-evolution-of-the-cmo