Ah, the plight of the CMO. We have all heard heard the statistics. They’re lasting in their jobs now about as long as Ashley Alexandra Dupre’s singing career. Following are the latest statistics from the Executive Search firm, Spencer Stuart.
2006 - average job tenure 23.2 months
2007 - average job tenure 26.8 months
It may be getting a little better, but there were twice as many CMO vacancies in 2007 as a year earlier.
CFO’s and CIO’s on the other hand keep their jobs right around 3 years. (This still seems short but it’s still 50% longer than CMO’s)
Articles on the subject have suggested job security tactics for the CMO’s - strategies they hope will lead to more secure positions and longer tenures. They won’t help because the focus of those articles is all wrong.
It is unadulterated horse manure that CMO’s need to “do a better job of communicating what marketing can and can’t do”, or need to do a better job of “establishing realistic expectations”. All this will do is make the rest of the C-suite think the CMO is hedging his bets or soft pedaling his effort - which is not going to inspire confidence that he can be entrusted with the advancement of the brand.
Marketing is about dreaming big and tenaciously pursuing those dreams. Sometimes you get it right, sometimes wrong. The smart marketers take stock, learn and move on fast, eyes forward on the goals.
Instead of making suggestions to the CMO that would put a band-aid over the issue at best, the writers ought to be addressing the REAL source of the problem:
The CEO. (Hushed silence)
When is the last time you ever heard of a CEO dropping by the CIO’s office and wanting to discuss the organization of the wireframes for the web site?
Everyone has an opinion on marketing. Board members. Employees. Customers. Elevator operators and custodial staff. Everyone thinks they know either what does or what will work. Usually, the CEO is the worst of all, because he’s the one with the budget clout and final word. But just because he is at the top of the corporate food chain does not mean his ideas or judgments are best for marketing the organization.
In fact, if he is a good CEO, he is not likely to have the time to be a good marketer. The CEO is, or should be, too busy leading the organization to do justice to the daily grind of running the marketing effort too. Show me an organization where the CEO (or the CEO’s offspring) is running marketing, and I’ll show you one that is WAY underperforming. Yet most CEO’s love marketing, and want to have an active hand in its creation.
They want to do all of the fun stuff - listen to the agency pitches; brainstorm taglines, cogitate the implications of the brand promise. Many have a very hard time leaving all this merriment (and publicity) to someone else. But the best marketing is never going to be done by a CEO - at least by a CEO who is doing a competent job of leading his organization.
Instead of jealously holding onto the marketing reins, here’s what the CEO SHOULD be doing:
hire a professional CMO
allow her to take an active roll in the planning process: the vision development and strategy formulation
give her the budget to get the job done
stand aside and give the freedom to do it without second-guessing
be absolutely clear about expectations: agree in advance on the metrics to quantify success
provide the expected time time frame to show results.
It would be really cool too if the CEO understood that in marketing as in finance sometimes the short term is sacrificed for the long term good.
It would also be terrific if the CEO understood that marketing cannot make a shitty company a good one. All it will do is increase awareness of how shitty the company is.
OK, but what happen if the cow doesn’t jump over that moon?
Are you thinking about joining an organization as a CMO? Here are some of the warning signs that it would be a safer bet for you to take an 8 second ride on a bull named Bone Grinder:
Warning Signs
The organization does not give the CMO a seat on the Executive Committee, or give her access to the Board. Again, is this because they think marketing is not important enough? Or because the CEO speaks on behalf of marketing?
CMO’s aren’t allowed to take part in planning processes, or provided with the vision and 5 year plan. This ensures that all of the marketing decisions are only as forward-thinking as tomorrow. How can the CMO make cogent marketing decisions if they are not provided with a semblance of direction regarding where the ship is supposed to go from the CEO?
Marketing has no budget or control over its budget. It’s recommendations, decisions and actions are therefore always subject to budget cutbacks and second-guessing. The CEO then has the final word.
The CMO is expected to provide consulting “input”, but has no decision making authority. He loses face and credibility with the rest of the staff, who rightly surmise they are wasting time with him since he has no real power. This undermines both the leader and the team.
The marketing is still done in 2008 the same way it has been done for the past several years. Same ads in same publications. The CEO, or the CEO’s kin has been handling the marketing function.
The marketing department is all about execution of top-down directives rather than strategy development. Marketing used used more to put out fires and take care of promotional emergencies than it is to support the strategy or move the organization closer to the vision.
The CEO must approve all ad copy prior to its publication. He has marketing books in his office, but the most recent ones are written by Ted Levitt and David Ogilvy.
There have been several CMO’s over the past few years, and you are told they a) weren’t a good fit with the corporate culture, or b) just didn’t work out.
The corporate web site is treated like an online brochure, and features models with 80’s hair styles. No one in the organization understands SEM or SEO.
Blogging is one-way and is treated as an attempt to toot the marketing horn even more. Comments of course, are NOT allowed.
Little marketing research is done, or it’s done for the wrong reasons. When you ask to talk with the Chief Insight Officer or to see the latest customer satisfaction results, you are met with far-off stares.
Under these conditions, marketing will fail - absolutely fail - to meet expectations. Never mind that the expectations are unrealistic, somebody has to belly up to the chopping block. And who do you think it’s going to be, you or the CEO?
What can CMO’s do?
Suppose you are already the CMO of an organization, and you are frustrated with your organization’s reluctance to accept your brilliance. Following are some recommendations for bolstering your credibility and making yourself indispensable to the management team.
Know where you are, where you are going (vision) and the strategy for getting there. Let this knowledge drive your decisions, questions, tests
Become the voice of the customer. Consume all of the current marketing research that you have on hand, and argue for doing more. Do focus groups, asking questions about satisfaction drivers, reasons for buying, and advertising tactics. Quote liberally from the groups in your memos and meetings, and send streams to the C suite to bolster your points.
Realize that a huge part of your job is providing insight. Do it. Spend one day a week in the stores, or talking with customers. Look in shopping carts, ask direct questions about the customer experience. Go beyond the basic purchase to explore the needs your organization satisfies. Try to experience your business, at least once a week, from your customers’ point of view.
Talk to your front line employees and ask them about the customer experience. Front line employees are nearly always an underutilized resource for marketing and market intelligence. They interact with customers every day, which gives them a solid basis for recommendations regarding changes or programs that will make the organization stand out way ahead of the competition.
Take charge of your organization’s marketing partner ecosystem, and realize that YOU are the guardian of the brand. It’s up to you to ensure the imagery and content is consistent, and consistent with the vision.
Never, ever mislead or lie to your market. Hold your organization accountable to the truth. (Duh!)
Be the gadfly - the person with the questions, not with the answers. When the CEO or any other marketing expert in the organization tells you what you should be doing, question their assumptions and conclusions. This doesn’t mean you won’t be a team player, it just means you will make sure many different options are considered before a decision is made.
Be the Change Agent - embrace and advocate change, especially that which is driven by and for the customers and prospects. Keep your colleagues on their toes, by pushing them to embrace change as well.
Embrace innovation - Business model innovation. Business design innovation. I infrastructure innovation - all of these are going to draw heavily upon your experience talking with customers and prospects.
Look for ways to reinvent marketing - embrace Web 2.0 and all of its amazing opportunities. Collaborate in wikis, build Google docs, bring in some experts in SEO and SEM. Put a video on You Tube. Blog and invite customer ideas and commentary. Do NOT censor the criticism. Learn from it and respond to it. Web 2.0 means two-way; learn to love it!
Become highly skilled in analytics, using new technologies and metrics to demonstrate the full value marketing represents to the company. Be able to fully integrate with sales and other functions of the organization.
Agitate, in a nice way of course, for a seat at the planning table. The customers deserve to be heard during this process, and you are the one with their voice. You want to be a part of the assessment of where things currently are, the development of the vision, and the creation of strategies designed to take your organization to the vision.
Stay focused and on goal
If you want a career in marketing, you are going to have to become comfortable with the fact that the best marketers will make other people in the organization nervous (especially the pseudo “marketing experts”) who will waste no opportunity to criticize or advise. But they’ll shut up eventually when they realize you know a lot more than they do about the customers and what motivates them to buy.
Or maybe they won’t! It’s always a good idea to keep the resume polished! But never fear - the one thing about marketing jobs is that we know new ones are always available!
And if you can bring experience and expertise in the above areas along with a passion for innovation and the customer, you’ll always be able to find a terrific marketing job.
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