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There is a clear message in a new study from the CMO Council: Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) need to change with the times, and define a new role for their position or their tenures will be short at best. The study, titled “Define & Align the CMO,” polled 1500 CMOs, CEOs, and other key executives to determine how the CMO function can better serve a company’s critical strategic marketing needs. An executive summary PDF can be found here. The study noted CMOs are leaving or being replaced at a high rate because they often lack the skills and credibility necessary to operate effectively in an increasingly technology oriented marketing environment.

An Adweek story on the study emphasized that in an age where management and boards of directors have high expectations for tangible ROI, CMOs either lacked the mindset or the technical prowess to deliver on these requisites. Adweek also mentioned that the age of “rock-star” CMO is going away, and instead companies are “going to the era of the geek” meaning they are looking for people who have the technical capabilities and orientation to achieve results and establish credibility with management.

A couple of our people recently returned from the Forrester Marketing Forum in Miami. This session was well-attended by key marketing execs from companies all over the world. The message by many of the presenters echoed the findings of the CMO Council study. In short, in the present marketing environment, CMOs will still need to be finely tuned to the needs of building brand equity, but they better be prepared to use new tools to accomplish results and have a deep understanding of analytics to justify any and all marketing expenditures if they are to retain their credibility with important company constituencies.