The Wall Street Journal: Research and Advice for Chief Marketing Officers
November 10, 2021 – Raines’ Managing Director and Chief Marketing Officer Lisa Mann spoke yesterday at The Wall Street Journal’s CMO Summit to present proprietary research and insights about the intangible role of the CMO. Read on for key takeaways from the presentation and advice for Chief Marketing Officers.
A few takeaways from Raines’ research on Chief Marketing Officers:
- Marketing leaders are losing their influence. 73% of Fortune 250 companies have a Global CMO, but only 44% of Global CMOs sit in the C-suite.
- There is a gap in understanding between CMOs and their CEOs. 23% of surveyed Fortune 500 CMOs are unsure their CEO understands their job and 21% of surveyed Fortune 500 CMOs are unsure they are aligned with the CEO on KPIs. No wonder CMO tenure is famously short.
- CMO priorities are not aligned with the CEO’s. Only 42.1% of surveyed Fortune 500 CMOs consider Topline Revenue Growth their top priority. If the CEO wakes up every day thinking about topline revenue, profitability, and disruption, how is it possible that well less than half of CMOs believe their number one priority is topline growth? That’s a disturbing scenario for CMOs and it contributes to a cycle of frustration and misunderstanding.
Three pieces of advice for Chief Marketing Officers:
- Don’t expect other executives to understand your job. It is your responsibility to tie marketing objectives to the CEO’s objectives to remain impactful.
- Speak the same language. We love our marketing buzzwords, but you can become a more valued member of the C-suite by using the same language as the CEO.
- Toggle left and right brain. Marketers are in a unique position to connect creativity to analytics and then work across the organization to drive change and results.
You can watch Lisa’s full presentation below and on The Wall Street Journal’s website here.
Lisa Mann is Raines’ Chief Marketing Officer and the Managing Director for Raines’ Consumer practice. Lisa has over 25 years of experience in the CPG industry including as the former Global President of the $7B PepsiCo Global Nutrition Category and EVP and CMO of KIND Healthy Snacks. For more information about our research or how to build your organization and its marketing leadership, reach out to Lisa Mann at lmann@rainesinternational.com.
The CMO Network Summit is an annual summit hosted by The Wall Street Journal for its CMO Network. The annual event looks at the changing role of marketing leaders and addresses some of the most pressing issues marketers face today.