A recent ANA survey – completed jointly with our research partner, Guideline, Inc. --found that only 13 percent of senior marketers are very satisfied with their company’s marketing structure. Further, only 21 percent say that marketing interacts at the C-level of the company. Yuk!!
While I do not have benchmark data, my sense is that the marketing function compares unfavorably with other functions inside the corporation. The implications are serious:
· The CMO carries far too little influence inside the company. Strategic direction and brand investment may not be optimized – and may be the reason the average CMO tenure is less than two years.
· The marketing function underperforms across a number of cornerstone disciplines – disciplines designed to optimize consumer / customer satisfaction and deliver on growth and financial objectives.
While there are many opinions on managing the marketing organization, the CMO needs to “structure” to support four primary objectives:
· Strategic Direction
The CMO must work jointly with the CEO and CFO to insure that the strategic blueprint for products and services reflects input from consumers and customers. Marketing must be the fulcrum to insure that appropriate financial resources are available to exceed consumer / customer expectations for product quality and satisfaction.
· Brand Stewardship
Empirical evidence supports the axiom that “strong brands lead to strong results”. Unless brand championship begins in the C-Suite, brands will not perform to their potential. This sub-optimizes corporate performance. Agencies can play an important role by to creating aligned investment strategies that leverage new media to effectively reach and influence consumer and customer targets.
· Integrated Marketing Communications
The CMO has to get close to new, digital media. Creating a sound, productive integrated marketing investment strategy is critically important to develop confidence in the C-suite that the marketing function is in control and can positive influence brand performance at budgeted levels of marketing investment. Since so few people have the skill sets to manage new media, CMO’s must increase their investments in experimentation and in skill set upgrades for marketing staffs.
· Marketing Accountability
CMO’s have to seriously upgrade their credibility. As a function, marketing must continue to push for increasing levels of accountability across the entire marketing supply chain. Marketers are often disappointed due to a lack of credible metrics and measurements throughout the entire chain. A well-oiled accountability machine – that includes partnerships with Finance and an Analytics group – can provide increasing confidence that marketing does what it says it will do.
