The CMO is said to be the guy, who handles advertising.
This stereotype becomes a huge burden for many that try to really deliver, what is behind this job description in 2019.
Many articles and studies in the last years pointed out, how the role of the Chief Marketing Officer changed, while he/she often still struggles within an organization. Ad spendings are usually the first costs to be cut and what the hell is a CMO doing anyway?!
I want to base the next part on two McKinsey papers.
One older from 2014 (The Rebirth of the CMO) and one from June 2019 (Marketing’s moment is now: The C-suite partnership to deliver on growth). You can find a huge load more of similar findings everywhere on the web and as long as you stick to the serios ones, they are telling pretty much the same story.
The Definition of Marketing
Marketing in its core is only barely about advertising, but more about product management, product and corporate strategy, as well as eliminating competition by pulling the right strings, based on data analytics and statistics.
Fortunately, those are skills, which are teached at every good university with a major in Marketing. Unfortunately, only a few students fully understand this.
More unfortunately, most companies (and its leaderships) do not recognize this reality And last but not least, most CMOs (and all respective departments below) have no clue of those disciplines.
In the end, it really often is all about advertising and often not even this, but rather talking to advertising agencies.
No wonder why CFOs tend to call those areas useless.
On the other side, the environment, in which a CMO needs to convince, became extremely technical and complex.
This article focuses a little bit on technology companies, but as long as you do not sell toilet paper, it fits your company too.
New Challenges
Reading the above, most people would think that the data analytics part is the new area. In fact, this is one of the oldest, because in the end, this is simply about statistics and math (problem is that most CMOs are not good with this part).
Advertising and the strategy related part are the ones that changed dramatically!
It is quite obvious with advertising if you consider all the new channels and new complexity of consumer behavior.
With strategy, it becomes clear when thinking about the many aspects, digitalization brought into our everyday life.
Think of the old school model of the “4 Ps” in a digitalized context.
The product is often no longer represented by a physical object or service. It became something totally new. From cloud-based software to a transportation company that does not own cars (Uber) and an accommodation company that does not own rooms (Airbnb).
The price became something that can change every millisecond, worldwide, within a never-sleeping competition.
The place moved to areas that are hardly to describe and even harder to imagine. Most people think of a computer, when thinking about the world wide web — still, this does not even match the reality a little bit.
Finally, the promotion, in 2019, is something that needs to be considered in way larger terms than 50 years ago.
The real Challenge within the Executive Board
No matter the mentioned development, the CMO always had and has a difficult standing within the C-Level board. While he often has a close connection towards the CEO, he often struggles with other roles, especially the CFO and all technical people (CIO, CTO, CDO).
Considering the very analytical and technical job, which a CMO has (or at least should have), this is a huge problem and often also a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Someone gets appointed CMO. He/she does not know anything about real marketing and technology. Other executives distrust this person. The role gets downgraded. Less experienced people follow, since it is no longer attractive. Even worse people follow and push the boat even stronger against the cliffs.
The Solution
The solution to all those problems — the new environment and external challenges, as well as the distrust within a corporation — is as obvious as it is simple.
A modern CMO needs to be more than some guy, who read a book about advertising and … that’s it.
A modern CMO needs to combine creativity, business sense, entrepreneurial thinking, social skills, strong analytical skills as well as cost awareness, and last but not least a deep technical understanding of both, the product (and its digital parts) and the more and more digital world we live in (from digital advertising to digital business models to modern workflows and tools).
A modern CMO needs to be a social tech guy with a strong business mindset.
The role of the CDO (Chief Digital Officer) became quite popular in the last years.
Most often, this role would be unnecessary, because a good CMO includes those things. At least if it is not about digitalizing the organization itself. So better think about redefining the CMO before hiring another expensive executive that brings in additional trouble.
I know it is easy to say, but hard to do so.
How can we get there?
It depends on your current setup, industry and specific company profile, how hard it is to get there. You might need to get rid of a friend, you might need to change a whole culture of bad stereotypes, and you might need to convince very critical and old-school thinking people about a completely new role description.
To be fair, one option could be to remove the CMO and replace (!) him with a CDO or CPO (Chief Product Officer). This way, you can define the role as you want and simply cut out all old negative thinking.
No matter the way, it pays off. That is not only my personal opinion, but also the conclusion of all those mentioned papers and studies.
If done right, Marketing can shoot you straight to the moon of success!
