Whose hour is it - is the CMO dead?

Sometimes, says the Chief Marketing Officer of an international company, he feels his time is up. Not just his, he corrects himself—no; marketing in general is in a bad state: «The accountants and bureaucrats are taking over.» The CMO has invited a friend who is an entrepreneur to his conference room because he wants to speak his mind under the protection of anonymity—about what he believes is «going wrong» in his company and others, and about how «we are treated today.» By «we,» he means himself and his colleagues, acquaintances, and business contacts who hold senior marketing positions in Switzerland and beyond.

«… as if what we do in marketing doesn’t matter anymore. As if we were just dead weight.»

«For years now, I’ve been feeling an ever-increasing pressure to justify certain activities,» the CMO blurts out, «but I never would have thought it would ever get as bad as it is now.» His budget for a major sponsorship deal has been cut, his media planning is almost completely on hold—and he isn’t getting any new employees either; quite the opposite. He’s being told to lay off people he poached from other companies just a few years ago at the request of his executive board.
Yet, at least on paper, his company is doing well, as anyone interested can see in the 2020 annual report. The sector in which it operates is characterized by low volatility. No, in the eyes of this seasoned marketer, the pandemic seems more like a pretext. It feels, he says, «as if what we do in marketing isn’t important anymore. As if we were dead weight.»

The Death of the CMO?

Of course, one could dismiss what is reported here in this private conversation as an unfortunate isolated incident; even if the CMO mentions that many of his acquaintances
are affected by similar developments. But from what he says, a familiar narrative emerges: that of the decline of marketing in general and the role of the Chief Marketing Officer in particular. The idea of the «death of the CMO»—and a little pathos never hurts in such matters—has cropped up repeatedly in professional articles and panel discussions since the turn of the millennium; it’s been accepted, rejected, but never completely disappears. Have those «declared dead» simply lived a little longer, as the saying goes, only to now be caught up by their fate as a result of the crisis? What exactly is happening here?

The Facts

There have been signs for some time now that things aren’t quite running smoothly between the marketing executives of many large companies and the rest of senior management. For example, a now-classic study by the Fournaise Marketing Group in 2012 found that 80 percent of the CEOs surveyed stated that they «did not trust their CMOs on strategic issues» or were «unimpressed» by their work. By comparison, only 10 percent of CEOs said the same about their CFOs and CIOs. Consequently, the seat occupied by chief marketing officers is a «hot seat»: The executive consulting firm Korn Ferry found in 2020 that the average tenure of a CMO is three and a half years. This is significantly lower than that of all other «C-suite» positions. Of course, it’s important to note that the survey was conducted in the U.S., where a more pronounced «hire-and-fire culture» prevails than in the DACH region; nevertheless, the survey can be considered somewhat meaningful.
Against this backdrop, the complaints made by the CMO quoted at the beginning seem plausible; it’s as if the COVID-19 crisis and the resulting cost-cutting measures at many companies were merely the proverbial last straw that broke the camel’s back. How things could have come to this, of course, is another story entirely.

Problem 1: The Institution

One possible explanation lies in a lack of clarity (which is actually surprising for top-level positions, but nevertheless exists here) regarding the responsibilities assigned to senior marketers in companies. The job profile of CMOs varies widely, and job postings sometimes leave a great deal of room for interpretation. «This leads to the paradoxical situation where senior management has certain KPIs in mind for the CMO’s work, but at the same time hires someone who doesn’t have the skill set to achieve them,» says Caren Fleit, who is responsible for supporting marketers at Korn Ferry.
Because such a scenario can lead to frustration on both sides and, in the medium term, to the CMO’s dismissal, an institutional adjustment is needed. «CEOs must decide a priori what kind of CMO they need,» write Kimberly Whitler and Neil Morgan in the *Harvard Business Review*. «A strategist responsible for positioning the company and its products, a commercially oriented trailblazer for the sales department—or both in one person?»
The respective industry can serve as an indicator here: According to Whitler and Morgan, companies in highly competitive industries characterized by relatively slow growth benefit from a strategically oriented CMO who can develop plans to increase demand. If growth isn’t the problem but sales need to be increased, on the other hand, commercializing the role is a viable option.

Problem 2: The Individual

However, some CMOs and marketing executives are actively working to put their own jobs at risk. To these individuals, creativity is seen as something foreign; nonconformity is practically a dirty word. Because they sense the air getting thinner, they don’t even attempt revolutionary ideas. Instead, they do what the CEO tells them to do and what the CFO rubber-stamps without asking critical questions. Above all, don’t draw negative attention to yourself! Not only does this collaboration with compliant agencies result in uninspired campaigns, but marketers are also clearly showing their superiors that things would run just fine without them. Poor «self-marketing,» in the truest sense of the term.

«Some CMOs are actually working to put their own jobs at risk. Creativity is a foreign concept to these individuals.»

That’s unfortunate, since it’s never been more important than it is today to «think outside the box» and take some risks. Advertising icon Sir John Hegarty puts it this way in an interview with this magazine: «I think the C in CMO should also stand for Creativity—because great brands are always built by great marketers.» However, some marketers have only a limited interest in approaching the profession in a progressive way: While a brand doesn’t evolve by «following the rules to the letter,» they don’t care as long as they can at least manage a few legacies from their predecessors or details from the brand’s history.
This form of (all too often intellectual) complacency on the part of marketers harms the entire company, because it makes it nearly impossible to build loyal customers, as content marketing pioneer Alexander Jutkowitz puts it: «Building loyalty is much harder work and requires not only that you value your customers, but that you like them enough to seek out a conversation with them every day. To bring passion and enthusiasm to that conversation, however, you must first feel both yourself.»

Not dead, but not alive either

These are just two of what are surely many more factors that have led to the situation the CMO criticized in the introduction to this article. Marketing and the role of the Chief Marketing Officer have suffered and will continue to suffer—and may even become obsolete in some places—if a comprehensive transformation does not take place.
Institutional problems can be solved by a CEO who understands the subject matter and through better recruiting; however, there will only be more truly passionate individuals in marketing if the educational institutions—which they attend (even in Switzerland!)—place greater emphasis on creativity, innovation, and disruption. «But how are you supposed to teach that to someone?» some who are familiar with the ways of marketing schools might ask. Yes, that’s a valid point, because of course it’s more challenging than having people write case studies and memorize calculations. But it is still possible: In Geneva, for example, at the IMD Business School, an executive program has for some time now been combining design, art, communication, and economics. It’s working very well and, in many respects, invites others to follow suit. By the way: One of the instructors there is Professor Dominique Turpin—who once authored a highly recommended «Forbes» article titled «Death of the CMO?», which is still considered a key contribution to the debate outlined here. Which brings us back to the beginning of this article and the question of how things should proceed from here. The crisis will certainly persist for a while longer, but then a new world will dawn. Marketing and the role of top marketers, too, can reinvent themselves. What could possibly go wrong? Anything is better than eking out a half-life, belonging neither to this world nor the next—neither dead nor alive.

RECRUITING: Four Steps to Finding the Right CMO

1. Define the role: Companies looking to hire a new Chief Marketing Officer must clearly define the role in advance—because, unlike with the CIO or CFO, the job responsibilities in this position can vary.
2. Adapt tasks to the role: Should the CMO take a more strategic or a more commercial approach? In the first case, the focus of their activities should be on thought leadership; in the second, it should be primarily on sales support.
3. Adapt KPIs to the tasks: Commercial success can be measured against budget targets, while strategic goals are more complex to evaluate. Carefully chosen KPIs help avoid frustration on both sides.
4. Aligning Recruiting with KPIs: It’s better to have a «narrower» job description with the perfect candidate than a candidate with too broad a skill set who still can’t meet certain KPIs.