MARKETING IN THE BOARDROOM

Chief marketing officers must regain CEOs’ trust

With corporate trust in CMOs apparently at an all-time low, a top agency executive discusses how to change this narrative.

ONLY ONE-THIRD OF CEOS trust their chief marketing officers to grow the business and CMO tenure is at a new low point, warns John Connors, CEO and Founder of US-based marketing agency Boathouse.

In a column for the advertising and marketing industry publication Ad Age, Connors says it is therefore crucial for CMOs to regain trust and tenure.

He gives five strategies to achieve this, the foremost being to stop striving to emulate other top marketers and to speak their language. Instead, CMOs must have a strategy that’s unique to their business and should start listening to their CEOs and boards of directors.

“Marketing strategies are not onesize-fits-all; the tactics used by the biggest brands may not work for other businesses,” Connors emphasises. He lists the following as his other four key strategies:

CHANGE THE CMO NARRATIVE

The CMO narrative needs to get smarter and less narcissistic. The lack of strategic innovation is driving a growing perception with CEOs and boards that chief marketing officers and marketing departments are not keeping pace with the changing business environment.

THINK BEYOND THE CONSUMER

Brand management has long succeeded based on the science of the relationship between a company and the consumer. In today’s business environment it is no longer sufficient for CMOs to focus on consumers alone.

The CEO must deal with an incredibly diverse number of stakeholders including the media, government regulators, elected officials, employees, supply-chain partners, communities, investors, advocacy groups and consumers. Preaching that “it is all about the consumer” is a largely outdated CMO mindset.

THE SCIENCE OF MARKETING

Marketing as a tactical science has grown, while marketing as a strategic science has declined.

Finance, technology, operations and manufacturing have reinvented their strategic fundamentals multiple times over. CMOs need to get moving and find new strategic theories. The industry should not rely on 75-year-old models. There are limitless possibilities in marketing and it’s time for CMOs to think bigger.

EMBRACE THE P+L STATEMENT

Since the concept of shareholder value was introduced in 1976, companies have increasingly been focused on the bottom line.

Recent CMO studies have reinforced the fact that marketers are getting the message and becoming performance- and ROI-obsessed. The challenge is that all performance is not the same. When CMOs shows digital marketing ROI or any hyper-narrow vertical measurement to a CEO when the company growth or share price are not doing well, they look like they do not get it.

CMOs need to talk about share price, multiples, valuation, growth rates and exit strategies. Too many CEOs and CMOs are speaking different languages.

PHOTO: BENJAMIN CHILD, UNSPLASH