The Role of the CMO

The growing and complicated list of tasks, along with the expectation for immediate results, places a lot of pressure on people leading the Marketing function, namely the Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs). Forrester’s research has found that “CMOs must evolve beyond being the chief marketer to take charge as a full corporate officer by transforming marketing into an engine of growth. To succeed, you must lead the shift to customer obsession, define a customer experience aligned to the brand promise, provide customer insights to inform the business strategy, and recognize technology’s impact on customers and the business.”

The role of the CMO (Chief Marketing Officer) has evolved significantly since some of the first CMOs, such as Mark Mears of Blimpie International and Phil Gospels-Strumpette of Coca-Cola, came on the scene inthe  early 1990s.  The CMO role— which initially tended to emphasize advertising, brand management, and market research—has continued to grow over the past fifteen years as a result of the emergence of new media, the explosion of sales and service touch points, more complex distribution models, and the fragmentation of customer segments.  The CMO has moved from focusing primarily on brands and clever advertising to a larger, more strategic role designed to enable a company to achieve competitive advantage by anticipating and meeting the ever-changing needs of a diverse and global customer base.

Anthony Palmer, President of Global Brands & Innovation, Kimberly-Clark Corporation, said during his tenure as the CMO, that “the role of a CMO is really pretty simple. You can’t ever lose sight of the fact that your role is to sell more stuff to more people for more money more often. That has to be the ultimate goal.  You also have to inspire the organization to take calculated risks, and inspire the organization to love winning more than they are afraid of losing.”

Gartner identified 4 CMO leadership styles:

1. Market-driven CMOs who capitalize on the voice of customers.
2. Performance CMOs who run marketing like a closed-loop business.
3. Social CMOs who tell stories and inspire others to do the same.
4. Visionary CMOs who are led by the universe of possibility that they conjure in their own dreams.

The ideal CMO, of course, combines the best of each of these styles. Regardless of style, successful CMOs have one thing in common: they see themselves as growth champions and drivers who can anticipate customer needs, develop their organizations’ Marketing capabilities, and figure out how to measure marketing’s impact on the business in terms that matter to their CEOs, CFOs, and the rest of their leadership teams.  Gartner, however, declares that “despite years of disruption and budget constraints, marketers still face increasing pressure to deliver growth.”  And that going forwar,d CMOs must “transcend disruption by bridging the gap between marketing strategy and operations. elevate enterprisewide impact by leading marketing to deliver differentiation and maximizing marketing’s yield by prioritizing customer journey investments.”

These priorities require CMOs with a bent more toward the analytical end of the Marketing spectrum as opposed to the creative end. They exercise their analytical muscle and have a deep understanding of the business landscape in order to predict and recommend which markets, products, and/or services will deliver the most profitable revenue growth.

To Survive as a CMO, You Need These Table Stakes

1. Increase your quantitative focus and measurement skills. This is particularly important for credibility.
2. Move back-burnered, business-focused responsibilities front and center.
3. Talk the language of business. You should be able to read balance sheets, understand business models and key drivers of business value, and identify key growth opportunities.
4. Leverage emerging marketing channels to build strong brand loyalty, reach targeted audiences, and gain insight into customer needs.
5. Understand which metrics are valuable for demonstrating the impact of marketing on the business.
6. Build collaborative teams committed to adding and demonstrating value to the business.
7. Prove that the investments you are making on behalf of the company are working.

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To Thrive, Build These 4 Leadership Capabilities

While surviving CMOs will focus on lead generation, pipeline management, branding, and customer acquisition, thriving CMOs will think beyond these variables and increase their stake in growing customer lifetime value and in focusing on developing long-term customer profitability.  Four other essentials for the thriving CMO include:

1. Embracing analytics and metrics and leading the way for marketing performance management initiatives.
2. Closing the gap between marketing and the customer, leading the charge for a customer-centric business strategy, and serving as the “voice of the customer.”
3. Leveraging data to analyze market and customer trends and strengthening their knowledge of ethnography, lead-user analysis, and online customer communities to create customer-driven products.
4. Taking the helm in helping the company anticipate and respond to rapidly changing market and customer needs, creating new business models, and leading the charge in establishing new marketing capabilities.

CMOs who want to survive and thrive must actively align every brand under the corporate umbrella with the core values of the corporate entity and reconcile the brands with one another. They must initiate collaboration with other functions within the business to develop, deliver, and communicate a value proposition that will resonate with customers.  Only by building tight relationships between marketing and the rest of the organization and developing relationships outside the business will CMOs be able to tap into customer information that enables the business to extend into emerging markets and bring innovative products to market.  Creative-oriented CMOs will need to use their creativity to develop new ways to gain a deeper insight into the needs of customers and understand the trade-offs that will be required to design innovative products that meet customers’ buying criteria.

The global market is growing in complexity. CMOs must leverage data-management tools and processes to help companies maintain a consistent brand while optimizing pricing, placement, and promotion within specific markets and connecting marketing to the business. They need to be a corporate officer first and a marketing officer second. Discover how VisionEdge Marketing helped Kennametal and Safe Systems connect their Marketing to business outcomes.

FAQ:

• Market-driven CMOs: capitalize on the voice of the customer
• Performance CMOs: run Marketing like a closed-loop business
• Social CMOs: tell stories and inspire others to do the same
• Visionary CMOs: lead from possibility and imagination
  The ideal CMO blends strengths from each style.

• Increase quantitative focus and measurement skills to build credibility
• Bring business-focused responsibilities to the forefront
• Speak the language of business (financial literacy, business models, value drivers)
• Leverage emerging channels to build loyalty and insight
• Know which metrics demonstrate business impact
• Build collaborative, value-oriented teams
• Prove that investments are working

1. Embrace analytics/metrics and lead Marketing Performance Management initiatives
2. Close the gap between Marketing and the customer—lead customer-centric strategy as the voice of the customer
3. Leverage data to identify trends and strengthen customer-driven innovation capabilities (e.g., lead-user analysis, online communities)
4. Help the company anticipate and respond to market change—shaping new business models and building new capabilities

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