Last year Business Insider crowned Marc Pritchard as the most innovative of the CMOs (Chief Marketing Officers) of 2017 and hailed him as the torchbearer in the ad industry’s fight to clean up digital advertising. The marketing general of Procter & Gamble made waves at the very beginning of the year when he said that the world’s largest advertiser would cut down on its ad spending and lived up to his word. Under his guidance, P&G’s organic sales rose 2% to $16.1 billion on a unit volume increase of 2%, even though they slashed spending on digital ads by $100 million. His next battle is shifting the focus from brand safety to quality “media content”.
Pretty damn impressive, right!Role of Chief Marketing Officers has been seeing lots of changes and was said to be in a stage of renaissance until last year. They have increasingly assumed responsibility for driving not just brand but also business growth and have an unprecedented opportunity to affect revenue and customer experience. CMOs are acquiring more authority inside company walls, in the C-suite, boardroom & are also becoming visible and accessible outside their organizations.
CMOs are breaking through the noisy fractured media landscape as thought leaders and influencers around not just their own companies’ products & services but also around a range of businesses and marketing topics, topics about what they are passionate about has become a new exception. Personal brands of CMOs are now playing an important role in shaping the overall perception of the corporate brand.
The Origin of the legend
But there was a time before all this. History of marketing is said to be as old as humanity itself. When our ancestors started selling the gains of hunting & farming, some honed their skills in the unique craft of persuading. At the most basic level, this can be referred to as marketing 101. Marketing underwent a great awakening after WWII as corporates started bringing tasks like public relations, sales & promotions under one corporate umbrella. When customer attention started evolving with relationship marketing in the crazy 90’s, marketer’s focus turned to building trust as the center of any good relationship. CRM & data mining started to bloom and the rise of social media & mobile marketing brands started constant communication to the customer who has become always receptive. No position evolved more than the CMO during all these changes. Earlier the CMOs in organizations were self-described marketing heroes who were good at marketing the job & themselves, but not at driving revenue or results. Recruiters elevated marketers who were best at traditional marketing functions such as brand development & tactical programs to the roles of CMOs without having a second look at whether they will be perfect for the job. As per CMO Council, the hiring criteria for CMOs did not include skillset like “business strategy, vision and corporate direction”, “budgeting and accountability of spend with CFO” or “sales, marketing and channel integration”. In other words, they were hired to be Marketing VPs, not Chief Marketing Officers. This resulted in the CMOs becoming ill-prepared to operate at the same level of other C Level Executives as they used to operate tactically not strategically. Chief Marketing Officers were ridiculed for lacking character, mastery, or power in the organizations and for leading to failure, short tenures & high turnover. News started coming up saying positions of CMOs are dead & several corporates even started bidding bye to the positions. But as Management Guru Peter Drucker once said, a company has two and only two key functions – marketing and innovation – and that all other functions should support these. Marketing as well as the role of CMOs can never die but only evolve.Winds Of Awesome Change
Are you enthusiastic enough to reach CMOs to discuss business?
Start by attaining leads from DataCaptive & sell like never before.
The Future Of The Game
- Steering Company Strategy
- Presenting a Future Vision to the Board
- Data and Design Genius
- Innovation and Transformation Leadership
- Master of Personalization
- Leveraging Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning
- Content Curation Alongside Customers
- Innovative Thought Process