Why the chief growth officer won't kill the CMO
This week, Michael Kang, Group CEO of Ebiquity published a defence of the CMO outlining why he believes the role of Chief Marketing Officer is one that should, and will, continue to flourish.
Key points:
- The CMO title is being eroded with shrinking tenure and removal of the role entirely from the world’s biggest brands
- This reflects a lack of understanding of the marketing role and the need for a C-suite consumer champion, who owns the end-to-end customer experience. Changing the name of that function (e.g. Chief Growth Officer) is a red herring
- Instead marketers need to stop focusing on the tactical and executional aspects of performance marketing (and the ‘quick fix’ it offers) and remember that as Les Binet and Peter Field have proven, long-term brand building is the path to driving genuine, profitable growth
- While marketing has become more complex - with more channels, more responsibilities and more partners - the C-suite has never needed a customer champion more
- However, for CMOs to hold their own alongside their C-level peers, more marketing leaders will need to be able to speak the language of the board and translate marketing activities into business impact
100 per cent. Long live the CMO! That said, if a title like ‘Chief Growth Officer’ or ‘Chief Growth Technician’ enables better C-suite conversations, maybe marketers shouldn’t rule out the rebrand.
A C-suite that is collectively focused on long-term profitable growth and a CMO that is confident of the very real role marketing has to play in delivering and measuring this, can actually move away from the distractions of new shiny toys or purely offer led strategies.
Instead, a long-term growth conversation necessarily engenders bigger, company-wide debates around finding new and rewarding ways to connect with consumers and increase their lifetime value. Whether it is identifying the competitive advantage products and services can offer or the role of creativity in disrupting seas of sameness, these are big questions (always the CMO’s forte) that can meaningfully propel a brand and business forward.
Performance / tactical / offer-led marketing absolutely has a place. In fact, it should have 40 per cent of the total budget. However, media efficacy in every channel is around 70 per cent dependent on the creative content that goes in.
So, even at this bottom end of the funnel, it’s useful to remember we are still trying to convince a normal human being to do something. Whether we’re persuading them via an EDM, a push notification or a TV ad, it needs to be inspiring, thought-provoking, and rewarding for that consumer. This is best achieved through creativity. And once again, it is the role of the CMO to imagine this potential creative outcome in the way that others in the C-suite are often unable.
From an agency perspective, a bold CMO partner is invaluable. Those leaders, who are able to set visionary horizons, to forget about the many short-term distractions and instead focus on a consumer-led mandate, are the ones who deliver growth for their business.
By constantly developing new ways to woo and wow a consumer in both the long and short-term, CMOs should be around for a very long time. No matter what they’re called.
