Tuesday, August 28, 2007
CMO’s: Is The Glass Half Full or Half Empty
byAn article today in The McKinsey Quarterly (may require free registration) details the immense changes ahead for the CMO position at many companies. Depending on your viewpoint, these changes could be perceived as continuing distractions for CMO’s in what is already becoming a difficult upper management role, or it could be seen as a genuine opportunity to shape an expanded and critically-needed function in an era of new media, fragmented audience segments, almost ubiquitous brand touch points, and growing marketing complexity.
Entitled “The Evolving Role of The CMO,” author David Court points out that the Internet is rapidly altering the way consumers find, research and buy products. In addition, that same Internet is giving consumers a power that was unheard of a few years ago to shape a company’s brand image. To succeed in this environment, Court says companies need to focus on two things:
1) Clarify the broadened role of marketing in general, and
2) Clarify the role of the CMO in particular to be able to respond to a marketing landscape that is profoundly different than just a few years ago
To quote Court’s article:
The changing environment calls for new marketing capabilities, both in the marketing organization and in the company as a whole. Within marketing, for example, the ability to build brands across an increasing number of media, including vehicles dominated by user-generated content, will be critical. Many companies will have to manage an increased number of advertising and PR agencies and to build new skills for creating integrated messages. There also will be analytic muscles to build, such as the data-management skills needed to compare and maximize the effectiveness of on- and offline marketing expenditures.
Many of these skills, such as expertise in the business use of social networking, in digital marketing, or in emerging markets, require a degree of specialization that complements the generalist capabilities of traditional marketing managers. As a result, many companies will be forced to restructure their marketing and sales organizations by creating centers of excellence for key marketing capabilities and, perhaps, by outsourcing marketing activities requiring specialized skills, just as some CIOs rely on external IT-development resources.
All this points to profound challenges and opportunities for CMO’s and marketing organizations. Those that capitalize on these changes will likely be the marketing leaders in the years ahead.
