CEO vs CMO
Next week I will be in Rwanda at the ALN annual conference. I might get one or two posts out anyway, but no promises. If any readers are at the conference, please let me know. I would be happy to meet up.
Chief executives and chief marketing officers often don’t see eye-to-eye on what precisely the role of CMOs entails or even on the effectiveness of corporate strategy. And in some cases, the disconnect is growing.
CEOs have been paying closer attention to their companies’ marketing operations as sources of growth in an unsteady economy, observers say. Frequently, CEOs are certain they understand how modern marketing works; in many cases, their CMOs don’t share that confidence.
Nine out of 10 CEOs say that the role marketing plays is clearly defined at their companies, according to a new McKinsey survey that tracks relationships between CEOs and CMOs. But only 22% of marketing chiefs say their jobs are well-defined and understood by other C-suite executives, down from 31% in 2019.
Similarly, 97% of CEOs think their companies meet customers’ needs, yet only 75% of CMOs agree, according to a May survey from Forrester. And 90% of CEOs say their companies’ strategies are driven by customers, while only 58% of CMOs say that is true, Forrester found… when asked to name their marketing departments’ primary responsibilities, only 50% of CEOs gave the same answers as their own company’s CMOs, according to the McKinsey survey.
The article is balanced, but clearly leans towards the suggestion that the CMOs know what they are doing, but need to do a better job at executive communication. Meanwhile the CEOs need to do a better job at understanding marketing,
Only 10% of CEOs at Fortune 250 companies have ever worked in marketing…
CEOs today are expected “to understand the impact of things like content and TikTok and data-driven marketing… in the past, they were used to seeing television commercials in boardrooms.”
“The CEO needs to lean into marketing and figure out how to leverage it, that’s step one.”
Maybe that’s right, but I am skeptical.
When I am brought in to help a company that is struggling with growth sometimes the problem is the CEO who is not listening to the CMO. But more commonly the problem is the CMO is the one who is struggling. CMO is a hard job, and there are a lot of people in the role who are not ready for it.
When I work with CMOs I can roughly put them into a 2x2 matrix:
The biggest barrier to success is usually not whether the CMO is good or not, it is whether the CMO is willing to accept help. Weak CMOs who do not want help need to be fired quickly. Weak CMOs who are willing to accept help can often (but not always) be saved. They are usually good at something that got them into the role they are in. By working with someone like me, we can usually turn things around.
Bigger issues often arise with strong CMOs who don’t want help. Often the issue here is ego. They think (or know) they are good, and they are worried that if they work with someone like me, then they will not get 100% of the credit when they are successful. They are willing to reduce the magnitude of success in order to increase the share of the pie that they get credit for. Given the rarity of good CMOs, these types of CMOs are often worth having around, but they limit the potential of the company. If they aren’t willing to steal ideas from someone like me, then they are also very likely to to cause other, political, issues within the firm.
Unfortunately for me I rarely get called in to help the strong CMO who is willing to listen. Those companies are rarely in a situation where the CEO feels they need my help. But when it does happen it is a treat.
More often, contra the WSJ, though I am working with strong CEOs, who are not getting what they need from the CMOs.
One last note:
I was just speaking with a large (26 country) education company that needs a new CMO. They need someone who is strong on analytics and performance, but also brand building, common sense, process management, team management, and upper management. It’s not going to be easy to find. If you are this person, or you know someone, please reach out and I can put you in touch.
Keep it simple,
Edward