Becoming an Empowered CMO

Viewpoint by Vanessa Cohen, Partner

Who would be a CMO today? The pressures are greater than ever: combating the shift of power to consumers; juggling the complexities of channel proliferation; pressure to demonstrate measurable return on their marketing dollars in a short timeframe; and constantly mitigating competitors in the face of accelerating innovation cycles. Given the changing world, and the fact that most of this change is being driven by changes in customer behaviors, you would think that the CMO would play a pivotal role at the strategy table representing the voice of the customer in determining business direction and strategies. In too many instances, this is not the case. However, CMOs can be instrumental in empowering themselves and influencing the role they play by visibly helping to drive sustained, profitable growth. To do this, they will need to take ownership and be the driver of 5 areas:

• Translating customer insights into growth-generating business opportunities and supporting marketing initiatives
• Building a strong brand reputation to create compelling and sustainable appeal
• Catalyzing and contributing to innovation and an innovation culture to help drive growth and enrich reputation
• Orchestrating the integrated delivery of customer experiences which deliver the brand promise through aligned organizational operations, culture, and reward systems
• Demonstrating the effectiveness of marketing spend by measuring the impact on bottom line performance

Transformation of the marketing function in this way is necessary and critical to success in today’s everchanging environment  Embracing this new role will empower CMOs and enrich the value they add. Short tenures may become a thing of the past…