T
E X E C U T IVE S UMM ARY
he CMO’s Agenda is an annual body of work produced by CMG Partners that gauges, probes and shares with the marketing community insights we have gathered through in-depth, oneon-one conversations with marketing leaders. The premise behind the research is simple: explore the most pressing issues that are on the minds of lead marketers. By engaging over thirty lead marketers from various industries in deep conversations, we attempt to reach those fundamental points that resonate with the entire marketing community. Although the topics we explore with each marketing leader essentially remain the same, each conversation leads to its own spirited discussion that digs to the core of the issues, struggles, accomplishments and trajectories these CMOs face and see themselves meeting in the future. As we review these discussions collectively, certain common issues rise to the top, themes develop and trends unfold, giving us a fascinating perspective on such a broad and diverse field of practice.
In this, our third annual CMO’s Agenda study, we explore a number of topics, including:
the ways in which innovation was manifested by our interviewees varied greatly, they all can be seen as an encouraging sign for the practice of marketing and its overall impact on business success.
T h e Rol e of th e Mark etin g Leader With this CMO’s Agenda study, we continued to explore the nature of the role of the marketing leader. One of things that we advocate to our clients is to continually pulse the market to ensure that the course they have chartered is correct, and if need be, course correct quickly. It just so happens that in this case we are taking a dose of our own medicine and correcting course ourselves. Our past research identified and introduced a concept built on the premise that marketing leaders need to be transformative and offered the term “Chief Transformational Officer” to embody this role. During this phase of research, we concept tested the notion of “Chief Transformational Officer” and discovered that it may not be appropriate for a number of reasons, including: 1.
The term “transformation” – Transformation implies an act at a point in time, whereas a marketing leader’s impact on the business needs to be evolutionary in nature. Additionally, the notion that marketing leaders need to “transform” their organizations to be successful is certainly in question.
2 .
Realm of control – We hypothesized that having P&L ownership was a critical success factor, but we learned through our most recent conversations that this is not necessarily the case. Although P&L ownership may elevate the position within the organization and provide a stronger voice for the marketing leader at the executive table, we found a number of marketing leaders that do not have P&L ownership but are still making significant positive impacts on their organizations.
• What is the role of the marketing leader? • How to enable focus and deliver results? • What are the traits of successful marketing leaders? • What are evolving trends that may reshape marketing? Across all of these areas, an underlying theme was revealed that struck a chord with us: innovation. Innovation in this sense speaks less to product or service advancements and more to a willingness to challenge existing paradigms by activating one’s own insatiable intellectual curiosity to challenge why things are done they way they are today. We heard marketing leaders address this in the context of their market models, their organization structure and the tools and technologies they leverage. Even though
i
E X E C U T IVE S UMM ARY More importantly, we revisited the fundamentals of the role of marketing leader and what we learned (and give considerable weight to) is that marketing needs to be the voice of the market to ensure the organization is evolving. To this end, we captured key learnings from our group of marketing leaders who were instrumental in driving efforts that ensured their organizations’ evolution, including: • An obsession with the customer: Based on the adage that information is power, the most progressive CMOs recognized the importance of having a deep understanding of their customers and their pain points. • A healthy dose of innovation: The most forward-thinking marketing leaders we spoke with were not taking the perspective of incrementally improving a product or service offering, but rather were searching for the critical customer pain points and reimagining their market model to increase value delivery and capture across all stakeholders. • Organizational currency: Our marketing leaders understood the importance of having healthy relationships with their cross functional peers, knowing that without it, organizational evolution would be stymied. In our white paper findings, we explore how marketing leaders have approached these areas, and in certain cases, provide vignettes of their experiences to help bring their approaches to life.
F o c u s a n d D e l i v e r i n g R e s ul t s Certainly one of the elements on all marketing leaders’ agendas is how to prioritize and focus to maximize the productivity of their teams and deliver results. We delved into this topic with our group of marketing leaders and what surfaced was an interesting yin-yang relationship between having a clear plan linked to the overall business strategy and being agile and responsive to material shifts in the marketplace. In the full findings, we explore how marketing leaders are approaching this challenge.
T h e Mark eting Career Ladder Two of the more fun and thought provoking areas we probed with our participants were the inherent traits to be successful as a marketing leader and the career progression of marketing leaders. One thing we discovered was marketing leaders are not shy in providing their opinions on the key traits for success! Beyond this, we uncovered a few common traits that our marketing leaders espoused as key to succeeding in their roles: • Think and act like a business leader, not just a marketing leader • Have cross functional experience or a depth of knowledge • Have an inherent sense of intellectual curiosity • Be strong team leaders In our full white paper, we explore why these traits are important as well as our marketing leaders’ thoughts on the career progression for lead marketers.
T h e Future of Mark etin g The final area we probed with our group of marketing leaders was their view of the future of marketing. As our team of marketing leaders looked into their crystal balls, one theme emerged - technology disruption. Technology disruption has impacted our lead marketers in terms of the new channels that have emerged, as well as the new tools that enable them to be more informed and more scientific in their efforts. In the white paper we explore how our lead marketers are thinking about this technology disruption and the opportunities and challenges that this disruption presents to them.
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METHODOLOGY The research was conducted primarily through telephone conversations and a handful of face-to-face interviews. A discussion guide was used to lead the discussion through critical business challenges, the role of marketing within the organizations, the make up of successful CMOs, as well as the future of marketing among other topics. Several associates within CMG Partners helped drive this research effort and extend their sincerest thanks to all of those who participated.
PARTICIPANT DEMOGRAPHICS Participants by Industry Consumer Goods
1 0%
Participants by Title CCO 3 % VP or SVP, Brand
6% Healthcare
1 0%
VP or SVP, Marketing
7%
EVP, Marketing & Sales Telecommunications
1 0%
7%
CMO
77 %
Industrials
1 0%
Technology
1 3%
Financials
2 0%
Consumer Services
2 7%
1
2
ROL E T of the MARKETING LEAD E R
he CMO’s Agenda is an annual body of work produced by CMG Partners to gauge and probe what is on marketing leaders’ agendas through indepth, one-on-one conversations. In our first body of work we discovered and introduced the concept of Chief Transformational Officer (CTO) as a descriptor for a group of marketing leaders who were making a significant impact within their organizations and ultimately in the marketplace. In our second body of work, we probed deeper into this concept of CTO and identified a span of reach and control within organizations that impacted marketing leaders’ ability to drive change for the betterment of their organizations’ market position.
In this most recent study, we tested this concept of CTO to gain marketing leaders’ perceptions of fit and appropriateness. Candidly, the concept of CTO was intended to be somewhat provocative as well as inspirational, and not surprisingly, we found a range of opinions and perceptions on this concept. EXHIBIT 1: Reaction to CTO
Y es, BUT ...
A gr e e “ The CMO needs to
have a handle on entire business and add value in a way that makes the role uniquely able to shape the destiny of the company… focus on delivering value. ”
“I t ’ s a ll a b o u t t a k i n g a n entrepreneurial view and taking ownership.”
“ It makes perfect sense.
Growth, profit, and volume must always be top of mind. ”
“ You have to ensure that marketing delivers against the business objectives for the transformation to happen. ”
“ A shift is necessary if marketing is going to add value and own part of the business. Not every company needs that. CTO — I wouldn’t want that title, it feels selfimportant.” “ My
role is to transform
the organization, but for true
transformation, it has to be a team effort. I’m more likely to think of myself as chief
D is agree “ I’m not sure companies should be transforming constantly…evolving, yes.”
“ It implies a state that
something was not right and now is versus an ongoing process. ” “ There’s a lot of baggage
associated with transformation. Transformation implies change, but what happens when change is complete? ”
“ B eliev e th is is a cro ck... co n sultan t speak. ”
imagination officer.”
What we took to heart, beyond the implication that consultants tend to use consultant speak, is that the applicability of this title to marketing leaders may not be appropriate. The notion that marketing leaders need to transform their organization to be successful is certainly in question. So what is the role of the marketing leader? Undoubtedly, the role is highly based on the situation – the industry, the organization structure, where the company resides on the growth curve, and certainly marketing’s realm of responsibilities to name a few. Regardless of
Ask 15 CEOs and you wil get 15 different answers. - CMO, industrials industry
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these factors, our interview findings and our experience points to a common objective and goal for the marketing leader:
OB J E C T I V E
GOA L
ensure the organization is positioned to win in the marketplace
deliver sustainable, profitable revenue growth
The underlying tenet of this objective and goal is the ability of the marketing leader to ensure the organization is evolving to meet the needs of the market faster than the competition by essentially acting as the voice of the market for the organization. EXHIBIT 2: Role of the Marketing Leader
MARKET NEED
MARKETING IS... ...the glue of the organization.
Marketing is ORGANIZATION
THE VOICE OF THE MARKET that ensures organizational evolution IMPROVED EXPERIENCE
- CMO, technology industry
...the spoke of the wheel. - VP, Marketing, healthcare industry
...the filter for the organization. - SVP, Marketing, financials industry
...the start of the value chain. - EVP, Marketing, consumer services industry
Dissecting this further, we found three key factors that play into a marketing leader’s ability to meet this objective and goal; an obsession with the customer, a healthy dose of innovation, and organizational currency.
O b s e s s i o n w i t h t h e C us tomer The notion that marketing needs to be close the market is certainly not new or novel. What we found interesting, however, was the varying degrees to which lead marketers are truly in touch with the marketplace. We found that while we have a camp of marketing leaders that is obsessed with understanding its customers and is constantly in touch with them, we also spoke with marketing leaders who rely solely on their sales channels, annual surveys, or syndicated data to understand their customers. The challenge the marketing leaders who are more removed from customers face is that they are competing with information that most likely their competitors also have, obviously diminishing their ability to win in the marketplace. Additionally, these marketing leaders face the risk of being off the mark with new product development and/or their promotional focus. The more progressive marketing leaders we spoke with recognize that developing a better customer understanding is where the strategic battlefield exists and these leaders are obsessed with evaluating new ways to strengthen their customer understanding. Supporting this premise, an interesting insight we gathered from a participant was, “we don’t let data
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dictate our innovation – [this is the] best way to make more of what already exists.” This marketing leader challenges her team to develop a deep understanding of their target customer. Marketing leaders need to drive themselves and their teams to fill in the gray area that exists beyond standard market data to generate the unique perspective of what the potential innovation opportunities are. EXHIBIT 3: The Customer Obsession Spectrum
“ We conduct
R EMOVED ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I NT I M A T E
“ We
have 100+ sales people and marketing always gets feedback. ”
“ We have open forums with sales and account management teams - we hold info sharing sessions and ask them what’s happening in the marketplace and we are surveying in the field with consumers. ”
an annual brand awareness study to serve as an indicator of brand health . . . customer satisfaction studies are ongoing. ”
“ Evaluating
“ Constantly
touchpoints and
talking to customers and adjusting strategy based on feedback. ”
where at each touchpoint we influence the brand. ”
A H e a l t hy Do s e o f I n n o vat i o n While an “obsession with the customer” is certainly important, we noticed a key distinction with our interviewees in terms of what they were looking for and how they were approaching understanding the market. Those marketing leaders that were truly positioning their organizations to win in the marketplace were not playing by the typical market rules.
In terms of what they were seeking, they were not only listening to the voice of the customer, but also were We focus to develop new attempting to understand what the customer was not categories of products before the able to voice or articulate but valued. As one of our customer realizes they have a need participants mentioned, his focus is where his customer or before they ask. is underserved, finding that something that is missing, and driving differentiation via this outside of the box thinking. - CMO, consumer services industry While this is a nuance of typical voice-of-the-market approaches, it is an important one, and requires a deep understanding of the customer mixed with intuition and experience to bring it to life in plausible outcomes. In terms of how these marketing leaders were viewing their markets, their perspective did not solely focus on product or service offerings but included re-evaluating their market models to deliver unique value. A few good examples that were shared include:
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COMPANY
CONSUMER SERVICES
INDUSTRIALS
FINANCIALS
EXISTING MODEL
Marketing basketball tickets directly to consumers
Marketing disparate components sold through intermediaries
Marketing undifferentiated products sold through intermediaries
CHALLENGE
Driving incremental ticket sales
Increasing product throughput
Increasing preference for a perceived commodity product
Through understanding the customer, he discovered that customers were not seeing the offering as only a sporting event, but also as entertainment. By reframing what the customers’ needs were, they focused their efforts on the total entertainment experience. One such change resulting from this understanding included bolstering pre-, during- and post-game activities to engage their audience.
Through evaluating the customer experience putting himself in their shoes - he discovered the pain point customers had was in picking out disparate products to make the home of their dreams. While improving individual products was an opportunity to increase revenue and differentiate from their peers, the more impactful opportunity was in developing prepackaged offerings that aligned with specific segments tastes and desires.
Through evaluating their customers’ day-to-day activities, they were able to identify areas surrounding their offering that would make their customers more efficient in their daily pursuits. Essentially, this CMO and his organization enabled their customers to be more profitable and through this effort, created differentiation and preference for their solution.
Marketing and delivering an entertainment experience.
Marketing pre-packed solutions tailored to segment’s needs.
Delivering services that augment the core offering and make their customer more profitable.
APPROACH
IMPROVED MODEL
In each of these situations, these marketing leaders challenged existing paradigms and took a unique point of view of the marketplace. The first reframed his organization’s focus to the true customer need, while the latter two noticed patterns in broader systems that were incomplete and leveraged their organizations’ assets to capitalize on the opportunities. These leaders were able to envision a better experience for their customers and ultimately developed new market models that were more beneficial to all stakeholders. Understanding and identifying a unique opportunity to position the organization to win is one thing – gaining buy-in and motivating the organization to execute is another animal entirely.
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Or gan i z at i o n al C u r r e n cy Not surprisingly, many of our participants noted the challenge of gaining buy in from the CEO and CFO in furthering their agenda. One of our participants used the term “healthy tension” to describe the relationship that exists between herself and the CEO and CFO. We felt that this was an insightful description given that marketing should be pushing the company to invest in both tangible and intangible assets to ensure growth, while the CEO and CFO are charged with ensuring those investments are the best allocation of resources. It is our belief that the fundamental challenge is moving from a performance-constricting tension to a healthy, productive tension. Based on our conversations, three themes surfaced that enabled this healthy tension: developing trust, mutually reinforcing value, and breaking down barriers. EXHIBIT 4: Organizational Currency Building Blocks
TRUST
As with any relationship, the core success factor is developing trust. As one participant highlighted, it took three years to develop his relationship with the senior team. He went on to describe a hedgehog-like approach of starting small, presenting the plan, committing to results and following through to execution. While certainly marketing measurement and analytics can help with this trust factor, the inevitability of incomplete data is a hurdle that all marketing leaders face. In fact, one particular leader noted that he has shifted his focus to being consultative rather than solely data driven to show relevance of marketing efforts to revenue.
VALUE
In addition to trust, another participant noted that developing strong relationships required providing value to his peers, essentially creating mutually beneficial relationships. This marketing leader’s approach to creating value for his peers was through generating and sharing market insights. In his words, “the more valuable the insights, the more peers will come to marketing, which creates alignment in goals and actions.” This particular tact was reinforced by another CMO who used his market information and knowledge to scrutinize his organization’s strategic plans early in his tenure to create credibility and improve his senior team.
BREAKING DOWN BARRIERS
A challenge highlighted by many of our participants within this arena was the internal resistance to change, not just within the organization but at the top of the organization. Arrogance was a term used by a few participants to describe the executive leaderships’ view of their business situations and prospective market challenges that their businesses faced. As one CMO new to her organization shared with us, her first action with the new organization was to focus on the customer experience, understanding each touch-point and where breakdowns were occurring that impacted customer satisfaction. Through this exercise and her findings, she was able to open eyes and mobilize the senior team to address these challenges – or in consultant speak, evolve.
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EXHIBIT 5: Value Driver Model LOW
IMPAIRED VALUE DRIVER
INCREMENTAL VALUE DRIVER
EVOLUTIONARY VALUE DRIVERS
HIGH
IMPOTENT VALUE DRIVER
LOW
Given marketing leaders’ purview of the market, they are in a unique position to help shape the future of their organizations. Through an obsession with their customers, taking an innovative perspective of their market model and creating the organizational currency to enable evolution, marketing leaders can deliver against the goal of ensuring their organizations win in the marketplace. While winning in the marketplace is the goal in the long term, the biggest enemy of this effort cited by our participants is the heightened pressure to execute and deliver results in the short term.
FOCUS
a
nd
DELIVERING
One of our participants aptly stated that her biggest challenge was “how to juggle not losing sight of the big picture but execute in the short term.” This was a theme echoed by the majority of our participants and in many cases included the additional challenge of executing with fewer resources given the current economic environment.
In one participant’s words, this delicate balancing act is one of reasons why CMO tenure is short: “they don’t get the basics done but can do the big things well – the basics are what get the results and the job done.” As difficult Prioritizing is one of the hardest as the challenge is in the real world, things that leaders do. it essentially can be boiled down to the balance between strategic focus and organization agility. - CMO, telecommunications industry
RESULTS
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S t r at e gi c F o cu s
A gil ity
There was a tried and true group of marketing leaders that relied on their organizations’ strategic plan and objectives to drive the marketing plan, prioritization and focus. The benefits of this approach are many, but are led by:
The challenge that most marketing leaders face is the balancing of being too tied to the strategic plan and not being responsive to material shifts in the market. How are marketing leaders approaching this challenge of being more agile?
• Providing focus on the critical marketing levers that will drive business results and contribute to the strategic objectives.
• Market insights: tying to our first section and the concept of being obsessed with the customer, being agile requires that organizations have a pulse of the market.
• Aligning the marketing organization to the strategic objectives and providing meaning to the activities they are driving.
Everyone should know what the corporate objectives are. I train my team to explain why something is important to the company - this is very empowering to my team.
- VP, Marketing, healthcare industry
A good example of this approach includes a CMO in the health food industry who anchors her planning in the corporate mission and its focus on increasing loyalty among consumers. She evaluates every opportunity in terms of its potential for growing customer loyalty and “immediately walks away” from activities that do not deliver against this goal. While this may seem one-dimensional, the beauty of this CMO’s approach is just that – its simplicity and the ease with which her organization can understand and act on it allows for instant focus and redistribution of efforts. While the over-arching guide of the strategic plan as a compass inherently makes sense, there is one certainty: no one can predict the future.
• Organization design: many of the marketing leaders we spoke to are organizing around small teams and providing autonomy to ensure responsiveness. One CMO noted that this tact helps ensure “nimbleness in decision making.” To bring this to life, one of our participants whose organization is focused on differentiating and winning based on the customer’s experience uses customer service feedback to drive tactical actions. She has teams established to review and code the severity of the issue and immediately begin work with operations, quality control, customer service and other teams. Her goal is to help them make service adjustments that rapidly protect the - VP, Marketing, customer experience and telecom industry the brand.
We thrive on chaos rather than planning.
Based on our interview findings and our own experience, the right answer to enabling long-term focus and delivering short-term results is blending core strategic focus with organizational agility. Certainly, the marketing strategy needs to be linked to an overall business strategy that will enable the entire marketing team to focus on and decipher what is critical to long-term goals. However, this focus will only optimally produce in the short term if it is built within an organization that is able to respond quickly to material changes in the marketplace. To enable this responsiveness, marketing leaders need to think about how they are structuring their marketing organization along with having clarity on the key marketing information and measures that are relevant to their business. Additionally, as we will touch on in the next section, it often takes the right person with the right traits installing the right team to bring this to life.
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THE
MARKETING
CAREER LADDER
Two of the more fun and thought provoking areas we probed with our participants were the inherent traits to be successful as a marketing leader and the career progression of marketing leaders.
T r ai t s o f S uc c es sful Mark etin g Leaders As one can imagine, marketing leaders are not shy as it relates to sharing their opinion on what makes them successful! As we looked across the range of answers we received, four common traits surfaced:
Business Leaders, not Marketing Leaders
We were somewhat surprised to hear the number of marketing leaders who stated that thinking and acting like business leaders was a key trait to be successful. As one CMO stated, “the first factor is thinking and acting like a business leader – identifying and delivering business results.” This same CMO went on to state that unless marketing leaders You have to understand the think and act like this, they will never be taken seriously by the senior operations and production to team. Underlying this sentiment is the fact that thinking and acting like a be truly effective as a CMO. business leader helps to forge the trust with the executive leadership team that is critical for marketing leaders to help their organization position - VP, Marketing, itself to win in the marketplace. consumer goods industry
B r e a d t h
of experience
Tying into thinking and acting like a business leader was the experience sets highlighted by our participants. Certainly depth in marketing was a key component, but the majority of our participants felt that having functional diversity, experience from different industries, and in some cases both were important traits for marketing leaders. From an operating perspective, many marketing leaders noted experience in sales was critical to success given the closeness with which these functions work. Other CMOs noted that an in-depth understanding of operations were important. A few CMOs communicated that the best marketing leaders come up through the product marketing ranks – a given considering the breadth of responsibilities a product manager owns. Ultimately this range of experience helps the marketing leader know what it takes to execute as - CMO, healthcare industry well as forge relationships with functional leaders.
It means we have a broader scope in our efforts because we have a broader view of what marketing is and does.
In addition to functional diversity, a number of CMOs spoke of the benefit of having experience within different industries as an asset that is often overlooked. One of our participants espoused that limiting hiring decisions from within an industry not only limits your talent pool, but also limits the degree of fresh thinking that is brought into the organization. This sentiment was illustrated by a CMO that lived this path and explained how her new role benefitted from her past experience. She was hired to bring a strategic approach to her company’s marketing effort and drew on experience from earlier in her career to re-launch the corporate brand. She was able to think outside of the marketing paradigms of her current industry because of her varied experience in other sectors and dislodge a few “sacred cows” from the marketing approach. The result was a far bolder brand positioning than the CEO had expected – an approach that genuinely excited the executive team and helped solidify the new CMO position as a trusted business advisor.
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Marketing leaders need an unending Intellectual curiosity was raised by a number of our curiosity with their customers and participants as a key factor for success, specifically as what drives them. it related to the customer. It is this curiosity and the willingness to explore unchartered waters that arms marketing leaders with the - CMO, industrials industry information needed to differentiate from their competitive peers. This intellectual curiosity enables marketing leaders to innovate and challenge their existing marketing model, a point that was touched on earlier in this paper. Additionally, intellectual curiosity is not just limited to the customer – as we will explore in the Future of Marketing section of this paper, there are a host of new tools available to marketing leaders. To effectively leverage these tools requires both the desire and willingness to explore and experiment to understand what is best for one’s organization. Intellectual Curiosity
Leadership The words courage and confidence were frequently used by our group of marketing leaders to define the traits that successful marketing leaders have. As we touched on previously, representing the true needs of the customer may require swimming against the internal biases that exist within an organization. Just this seemingly simple act requires the Marketing is an advocate courage to fight this battle along with the confidence that this is the for the customer.. and it’s right decision. Additionally, the majority of the time marketing leaders all about the customer. are acting on imperfect or incomplete data, requiring a high degree of confidence to place a few big bets. - CMO, financials industry Certainly these traits are not exhaustive, but rather representative of what was top of mind from our participants. In our opinion, these traits are solid building blocks that lay a foundation for success and position marketing leaders for the next step in their career progression.
CMO
Pro g r e s s i o n
When we asked our participants about the next step in their career, we were surprised at some of the reactions we encountered. One of our interviewees suggested that CMO is a dead-end job - that the skill sets acquired in the marketing profession simply do not lead What does one do after being a CMO? to the corner office. Yet another expressed concern that many Retire and write a book? marketing professionals are not strategic, hold a limited view of marketing and do not think like business leaders. - CMO, industrials industry
While this negative reaction was somewhat surprising from some of our participants, certainly it was not all gloom and doom. Other participants opined that the “the best CMOs become CEOs.”
Those who think about the business holistically, [are] flagrantly opportunistic, cutting edge, strategic and authentic they can be the next great CEO. - CMO, consumer goods industry
Why this disparity in opinions? We believe it can be partially attributed to what one participant described as an “identity crisis” that exists within marketing given the breadth of responsibilities marketing encompasses. This identity crisis manifests itself as it relates to a marketing leaders’ experience sets, with those having only marketing communication expertise having a perceived limited ability to impact the business and a limited runway in their careers.
We are not proposing that all marketing leaders should or want to move to the ranks of CEO, but for those who do, the path is not clearly paved. Even for those marketing leaders aspiring for the CEO role, the majority
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were targeting a lateral move to a general manager or a finance leadership role to build out the experience sets prior to being a prospective CEO candidate. In our opinion, if marketing leaders are able to truly move the needle with their organization’s ability to win in the marketplace, they will write their own ticket for whatever their desired next career move may be.
TH
E
FUTURE
F MARKETING
Given the opportunity to speak with over thirty of lead marketers, we just could not pass up getting their opinion on where they saw the field progressing. So, what is the future of marketing? What is the next big trend or discovery? These were some of the final questions we posed to our participants. Not surprisingly, technological advances were top of mind for our participants, including social media, mobile marketing, and data proliferation to name a few. As we listened to the CMOs discuss these technology advances, a theme emerged: the disruption that technology is having on how marketing leaders and the function in general operate.
Marketers of yesteryear would have reveled in the ability to leverage the tools, data and channels that exist today. But figuring out just how to deal with the complexities of the technology and the intimacy of the conversation have posed unforeseen opportunities and challenges for everyone. What does this mean for marketing leaders?
We have to be speaking in a way that connects at
Oppo rt u n i ti e s
Through social media, marketing leaders have an a values level - in a human, authentic fashion. unprecedented ability to reach and engage their - VP, Marketing, technology industry strongest asset: their customers. Undoubtedly, there is the requirement to deliver against the brand promise of the offering. In social media, however, creating engagement and excitement requires participating in the dialog organically and connecting at a deeper, values-based level while also delivering the unexpected, positive memorable experiences at times.
Engagement and community building
Relevancy Marketing leaders have the ability to “narrow cast” through not only reach but also location via: • mining their customer data to drive towards micro segments, or 1:1 marketing, • delivering more meaningful messages aligning to a particular individual’s values and interests, • and reaching the target customer at opportune times through mobile marketing.
Innovation pipeline
Mobile and digital wil become the norm while mass marketing wil become a thing of the past.
- CMO, consumer goods industry
There is no more efficient way to engage, listen to, and learn from the market than via social and other online mediums. Marketing leaders now have the ability to leverage the proverbial gold mine of knowledge, learn from it, and act on it to drive innovation. There is, though, a nuance to this – an underlying need to do it authentically and in a manner that Marketing is about collaboration and crowd sourcing and being true makes customers feel as though they with your ecosystem.. we’re not a machine that is pushing messages out are participating in an effort to create but inviting and engaging our customers in innovation. something meaningful.
3.0
- VP, Marketing, technology industry
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C ha ll e n g e s Control (or lack thereof) There is no question that social and online media have reversed the direction of the corporate dialogue with the market, allowing customers to lead the conversation directly through their own experiences. For marketing leaders, the implication is their customer is now their strongest asset. Fostering this asset in the new social order requires authenticity in setting, delivering against, and ultimately exceeding the customers’ expectations.
Elevated expectations
It’s now about evolution and revolution - the power of the customer to have a voice [right now]. WOM has always been important, but it is now a driving force that you can’t control. - CMO, consumer services industry
The more targeted and personal the message and the experience are, the higher the expectations are from the consumer. Now more than ever, marketers need to be the champions within their organizations to make good on their customer promises, meeting or The role of customer service wil change ideally exceeding the needs of the customer. To enable this, marketing leaders need to ensure they are monitoring because of social media setting an and dissecting the conversation to discern trends from expectation of immediate response. online consumer opinion – acting as the voice of the - VP of Brand, market to effect positive change and evolution within their telecommunications industry organizations.
Organizing for success More tools and channels implies more functional expertise added on top of the operating silos that exist within marketing teams today. The challenge that marketing leaders face is staffing and organizing for functional expertise, while delivering an integrated experience for the customer, and developing future marketing leaders. While this technology disruption cannot be ignored given the opportunities it presents, the tools and channels enabled by it are not the end all, be all answer to winning in the marketplace. Rather, these technological advancements are just a few more tools in the marketing leader’s toolkit to help reach the goal. The most important aspect for marketing leaders is to determine how to harness these technologies in the ongoing effort to deliver sustainable, profitable revenue growth.
Tools come and go, but the fundamental question and goal of marketing has not and wil not change. - CMO, industrials industry
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THOUGHTS ON
DELIVERING
INCREASED VALUE: TODAY and TOMORROW
At CMG Partners, we believe that marketing is an underleveraged asset – and ultimately that marketing should be accountable for winning in the marketplace and delivering sustainable, profitable revenue growth. Through our conversations with lead marketers and our own experiences, we have developed a short list of thoughts to consider on your path to winning in the marketplace.
• Challenge paradigms: Fueled by their intellectual curiosity, progressive marketing leaders take a unique perspective of their market to discover untapped opportunities. They challenge existing models and write their own playbooks to enable their organizations to win in the marketplace. Ultimately, they have the self-confidence to believe in their vision and stand up for the customer within their organizations.
• Choose battles strategically: Balancing long-term strategy and short-term tactical results, adept marketing leaders are able to set a vision and provide focus for their organizations based on the key levers that will drive business results and contribute to the organizations’ strategic objectives. They do this while ensuring that their organizations have a pulse of the market and are nimble enough to respond to shifts in the market that are certain to occur. •
Develop broad talents: The progressive marketing leader is more than a marketer; he or she is a
business leader. Holding this position means having broad and diverse experiences as a marketing professional and marrying that expertise with a deep understanding of non-marketing functions, such as finance, product development, customer service, production and even human resources from a cultural perspective. Marketing leaders who bear this toolkit of experience sets and business acumen are able to gain the trust and confidence of their executive peers as well as effectively bring their visions and ambitions to life.
• Experiment, move quickly and execute flawlessly: In today’s fluid market environment with the proliferation of tools at marketing’s disposal, progressive marketing leaders recognize that they do not have all the answers and have the self-confidence to explore and test new tools and options. Harnessing the power of both social media and improved pricing and research tools, these marketing leaders do not hesitate to wade into the water, find out what is most effective for their organizations and put in a course of action that motivates their teams to test, learn, scale and drive improved results.
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About CMG Partners Since 1998, CMG Partners has helped clients capitalize on market opportunities and improve business results through the development and implementation of innovative go-tomarket, brand, and communications strategies. We work with organizations along the complete continuum of company, product, and customer life cycles, from helping identify, evaluate, and exploit new market opportunities to refining and re-energizing existing businesses, brands, and strategies.
Authors Karl Gustafson Director karl.gustafson@cmgpartners.com Beth Ranzer Senior Manager beth.ranzer@cmgpartners.com Brett Smith Marketing Manager brett.smith@cmgpartners.com
Copyright Š 2011 CMG Partners
www.cmgpartners.com