Content Writing

The Modern CMO Challenge: Clearing a Path Forward

Writer / Author Christopher Vickers, Atlanta-based Brand, Advertising + Content Marketing & Communications Strategist & Creator

Profitable brand, customer, sales and revenue growth are more challenging than ever. The media and tech proliferation that began some 20 years ago continues seemingly unabated. And the highly personalized customer experience delivered by companies like Amazon and Netflix continue to raise customer expectations across categories.

Marketers try to move the needle, but owners and Board members require the kind of business case normally reserved for big cap-ex investments before allowing the most modest initiatives. Yet the Board holds marketers ever more accountable for driving business results with a budget that’s prone to reduction each year.

And with average CMO tenure still hovering around 18-24 months, shorter-term impact and making due with what you have now makes more sense anyway. In fact, one report suggested that CMOs are the first to be blamed when companies miss growth goals. If that’s not disquieting enough, some prominent companies are replacing the CMO title with variations such as chief growth or revenue officer which reflect greater accountability.

In this environment, it’s hardly a surprise that many CMOs are not only nervous about the future of their companies, but also about their long-term prospects after getting promoted or hired into the c-level position. As one CMO recently said: "Customer expectations and behaviors are changing rapidly and organisations have to adapt quickly to deal with the change."

Transforming the way back to relevance

Seen one way, the prognosis is perilous. Yet we find that news of the end of the CMO as we know it is exaggerated. As with most tectonic shifts in business and society, where there are losers, there are also winners. There is a growing body of CMOs who are attuned to where business and marketing are going and are taking the necessary steps to ensure that they and their companies can transform and thrive in the age of continuous change.

In the BrandZ Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands report, the three most meaningful characteristics of the top 20 climbers are: meaningfully different (relevant and distinct); brand experience (customer journey); and disruptive (shaking things up).

This points to three areas central to the remit of the CMO: brand, customer and innovation, meaning marketing can become the galvanizing force to connect enterprise-wide transformation. What we’re finding is CMOs who embrace change and understand how it impacts brand relevance are better-placed to create more value for the enterprise. As a result, these "super CMOs" are evolving the role as enterprise-wide change agents and business drivers.

Marketing transformation is the opportunity of an era

Beyond the CMO’s office, transformation of the marketing function is affecting capability, talent and culture across the organization too. How companies act on this will ultimately mean the difference between longer-term success and a patchwork of short-term efforts with results that fade rapidly. Simply put, focus is too often on the finish line, not the people power needed to get there.

In the UK for example, a retail crisis of 2018 recorded more than 24,000 retail closures during the first six months alone. Thoughts that retail was being eaten up by ecommerce were quickly stemmed when UK digital darling Asos saw its stock fall by 43%, wiping more than £1.4bn from its market value. Other UK retailers such as Boohoo and Zalando also lost significant market value. Yet, UK retailers that were notably reorienting themselves around shifting omnichannel customer expectations for service and experience enjoyed growth.

Sephora is a standout example. The mecca of make-up offers its customers a fully immersive shopping experience across all channels, which earned the company 11% organic revenue growth in the first nine months of 2018. Another example is Disney, which now connects every detail of the theme park excursion through a one-stop portal. The company reported an operating profit of $4.5bn in 2018 – an increase of more than 100% from five years earlier.

Today’s consumer expects superior, tailored engagements across most touchpoints. It's about brand relevance and business survival. It’s easy enough if your company was born in the web 10 years ago with a cloud-based tech stack and the agility of a start-up. But let’s face it: for many established businesses, marketing and communications strategies are still modeled on structures developed in the era of fax machines.

In our experience, most marketers say they are transforming the marketing function in their organisation. This may be a big long-term platform for change or making changes on a smaller scale. It may be about rethinking the role of tech or culture or capabilities. Whatever the nature and whatever the degree, they’re trying to make updates while the plane is in the air; and if they’re not, it’s on their to-do list.

The need for change becomes more pronounced as time marches on. The more challenging questions are around how to approach transformation, where to set the goal posts and how to get started.

The marketing transformation industry is maturing and a growing number of consultancies can bring you along that path. The people/process/platform approach remains prevalent, but many businesses are missing key points that threaten to derail transformation efforts.

Whether or not you think marketing transformation should be relegated to "buzzword" status, the fact is that marketers who are thinking in terms of transformation are better prepared to uncover modern growth drivers and be in a position to contribute to business health, now and over time. For those who aren’t, maybe the reports about a slow gradual decline aren’t so exaggerated.

Citation: Campaign Live