The Rift Inside the C-Suite - the Ceo Vs. the Cmo

THE RIFT INSIDE THE C-SUITE:

THE CEO VS. THE CMO

INTRODUCTION

The need for companies to focus on their customers has never been more critical or apparent than during these soft economic times. As companies cast about for the applications and strategies to assist them in that quest, the Chief Marketing Officer has emerged as a fulcrum of those efforts. It's the CMO's role to execute tactical tasks, from sales support to marketing campaigns to ongoing advertising and public relations. The CMO must also pay careful attention to the company's market positioning and customer relationships.

As large corporations redouble their efforts to find more profitable paths to growth, they’re looking for strategic and operational leadership from the marketing organization more than ever before. The result is the increasing pressure on and prominence of a senior executive whose title didn’t even exist 10 years ago: the Chief Marketing Officer, or CMO.

But the track record of CMOs, so far, is mixed. According to a recent study by the global executive recruiting firm Spencer Stuart, the average tenure for CMOs is only about 23 months.

•Average tenure for CMOs: 22.9 months (at the top 100 branded companies).

•Average tenure for CEOs: 53.8 months.

•Only 14% of CMOs for top global brands have been with their present company for more than three years.

•Nearly 50% of CMOs for top global brands are within 12 months of being on the job.

Table: CMO Tenure stats

At one extreme, the Starbucks Corporation staffed and re-staffed its head of marketing five times in seven years; Coca-Cola Company changed its CMO four times in six years; and Kinko’s (now FedEx Kinko’s) staffed the position three times in five years. The stats below show us an intriguing picture of the longevity of a CMO in an organization which is largely considered to be a result of the differences of a CEO’s expectations to his second-in-command! This paper will try to put some light on the either side of this soap-opera!

THE EVOLUTION OF THE RANK

To a degree, the emergence of the CMO is simply a matter of nomenclature. There are chief talent officers, chief technology officers, chief investment officers, and chief financial officers. Why not simply rename the senior-vice president of marketing the CMO? CEOs of Fortune500 firms who have appointed CMOs say it is because they need someone who does more than what is expected of a conventional leader of marketing. As the need for marketing expertise becomes more pressing, CEOs have recruited CMOs as direct reports to bolster their marketing bench strength. Particularly when reputation risk is a major concern, the CEO needs a single person to whom he or she can turn in the event the corporate brand (or a prominent brand owned by the company) encounters a crisis.

THE ROLE OF A CMO

The CMO role reflects the elevation of marketing in business organizations and the expectation that the individual holding the CMO position should serve as the missing link in the executive team that turns marketing capability into corporate growth. When the CEO appoints the CMO to lead his star executive team of marketers he expects it helps set the strategic agenda, contributes to enhanced shareholder value, and leads a continual corporate transformation that keeps the business relevant to its customers’ needs.

Fig: The CMO is transitioning from marketing leadership towards being the �master clock’ of the organization.

Creative marketing leadership is also sought to differentiate and strengthen brands through integrated communications strategies. The goal is for companies to better understand customers’ buying preferences and link that knowledge to the delivery of products and services that are more relevant to customer needs, and to develop closer channel relationships. But the demands on marketing don’t stop there. Companies are looking to chief marketing officers to contain costs in media expenditures, marketing ser- continually “trying to grab and control everything.” The most effective