Pushing To Business Success

An experienced CMO will know how to take a scalpel rather than a sledgehammer to the marketing budget.

Some good news for marketing heads: Chief Marketing Officer (CMOs) are holding on to their jobs longer. Spencer Stuart's annual survey of CMO tenure at the 100 most advertised brand in the USA reveals average time on the job has risen to 28.4 months from 26.8 months in 2007 and 23.2 months in 2006.

The popular interpretation of this data is that CMOs are aligning better with CEOs.
The best CMOs stay low-key and aim to make the CEO, who is often from a non-marketing background, comfortable becoming the chief cheerleader for the brand.

Here are the four top marketing issues on which today's CEO are looking to their CMOs for guidance:

* Shifting consumer behavior
Companies need updated consumer research and revised approaches to customers segmentation.
* Price positioning
An economic downturn invariably increase customer price sensitivity. Marketers need to hit key retail price points, emphasize lower cost stripped-down or downsized versions of their products, and revamp their promotion calendars to maximize price competitiveness at the point-of-sale. While price and perceived value inevitably become more important to consumers, the core benefits of the brand must still be emphasized. On these matters, collaboration between the CMO and the CEO is critical.
* Stretching marketing dollars
Recession demands that marketers come up with creative ways of doing more with less. Dollars might be shifted from television to cheaper radio advertising if it's important to maintain message frequency.
* Embracing digital
Rather than avoiding internet advertising, now may be the time for many companies to experiment further and allocate more of their budgets to search advertising, banner advertising, or motivating user-generated content through a branded website.

The best CMOs have both left brain and right brain proficiency. It means that they must have both analytical ability needed to focus on return for their spend, but also the creativity needed to position their brands in ways that are truly distinctive.

The recession will have two important, lasting results for CMOs:

1. First, financial accountability of marketing is here to stay.
2. Second, improved accountability requires CMOs to be financially literate, to understand the balance sheet as well as the income statement impacts of marketing initiatives. The result will be a new generation of CMOs who command more respect in the C-suite and hold their jobs longer as a result.