Interviews with top marketing chiefs reveal changes taking place to the role of marketing
London, 16 July 2007 – Corporate marketing organisations are undergoing major transformations as they drive business performance. Leading Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) are tightly integrating marketing with other corporate functions as they get closer to customers, capture the benefits of new media, and demand more from their agency partners. A new book commissioned by management consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton and the U.S. Association of National Advertisers (ANA), published by strategy+business Books, uncovers why revenue growth and profitability are strongest among companies that elevate the role of marketing to the highest possible level.
CMO Thought Leaders: The Rise of the Strategic Marketer, edited by Geoffrey Precourt with an introduction by Gregor Harter, Edward Landry and Andrew Tipping, features interviews with 15 of the world’s most influential and effective marketing leaders who are redefining the practice of marketing as they help drive their companies’ growth agendas. Across industries, from Jim Stengel at Procter & Gamble to Beth Comstock at GE’s NBC Universal and Rob Malcolm at Diageo, marketing chiefs are aligning their marketing strategies with overall management goals, working more closely than ever with manufacturing, distribution, sales and finance, and working differently with media and outside marketing partners.
As Procter & Gamble’s CMO, Jim Stengel, notes: “In any company, the CMO has to be not only the consumer-insights champion, but also the person who is really valuing what the enterprise is working on.”
“Today, the role of the CMO demands openness to experimentation, an inclination towards pioneering, and an ability to integrate marketing with strategy as never before,” says Richard Rawlinson, vice president at Booz Allen in London. “The stakes are high for CMOs today; to be successful growth champions for their organisations, CMOs must be empowered to be curious, to take risks, to learn, and to sometimes fail, but always to grow.”
Six important themes emerged from the series of interviews with leading CMOs, revealing that the business of making powerful connections with customers is in the midst of unprecedented change:
Put the consumer at the heart of marketing. Adopting a consumer-centric perspective is an integral part of every successful marketing organisation, and it no longer relies on intuition. CMOs are pushing their organisations on every front to gain sustained exposure to what their consumers and customers are thinking and doing. “The customer influences almost everything that happens in marketing today, from research, to engagement with innovation and product development, to the vehicles companies use to communicate with their customers,” says Bob Liodice, president and CEO of the ANA.
Make marketing accountable. Finding ways to accurately measure return on investment remains a thorny issue for CMOs, and is the leading factor that brings marketing under pressure from management. Research from Booz Allen and the ANA finds that 90 percent of marketers across nine industries see measurement as a major challenge. The most successful CMOs have convinced colleagues that marketing accountability takes place on two levels: the specific return on marketing programmes, and the overall health of the business and brands. “I find that my colleagues will support me if they see the results of our successes and…the discipline of our efforts, and quite frankly, the transparency of our failures,” says John Hayes, CMO of American Express.
Embrace the challenges of new media. Booz Allen’s and the ANA’s ongoing research suggests that traditional advertising still accounts for 80 to 90 percent of the marketing expenditures at consumer companies. Still, every CMO featured in the book has an appetite to go out on a limb and try new ways to connect with customers. “Consumers are telling us that they want to be in control of the storytelling, and as part of that desire, they want to engage in advertising in different ways,” says Beth Comstock, president of Integrated Media at NBC Universal.
Recognise the new organisational imperative. Successful CMOs are driving marketing forward as an integral part of the enterprise that nurtures the overall health of the business and its brands. For Pepsi–Cola North America’s CMO Cie Nicholson, the bridge between marketing and innovation is critical to her team’s performance; at Diageo, CMO Rob Malcolm’s responsibilities include marketing, sales and product innovation. To foster growth, CMOs are cultivating the creative and analytical strengths of their people, encouraging specialised skills, and emphasising training. “In marketing, you need to use both halves of your brain,” says Diageo’s Malcolm.
Live a new agency paradigm. CMOs expect a new level of partnership from their advertising agencies and the ancillary companies that work with them. They are assembling multi-agency groups, getting them to collaborate, and in some cases to compete – all in the name of a better product. To survive, agencies need to be in lockstep with their marketing counterparts in finding new ways to get the message out. “They need to get more integrated,” says P&G’s Stengel. “They need to go digital. Those that are making those changes are turning away business. Those that haven’t adjusted are struggling.”
Remain adaptable. “In the face of competition, new technologies, and acquisitions, leading marketers are taking on change and keeping the marketing agenda moving in pace with their general management colleagues,” says Richard Rawlinson, vice president at Booz Allen in London. “Adaptability has become inherent in the way CMOs respond to new media, hire and train their people, and bring a marketing mindset to other parts of the business. Successful CMOs live these principles every day.”
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