A 2012 global survey by the Fournaise Marketing Group highlights the tensions between them: The results reveal that 80% of CEOs don’t trust or are unimpressed with their CMOs. (In comparison, just 10% of the same CEOs feel that way about their CFOs and CIOs.) CMOs also sense a serious problem. In our own surveys, 74% of them say they believe their jobs don’t allow them to maximize their impact on the business. Why?
1ne: Marketing that wins awards, but fails to drive business objectives. An award at Cannes is useless unless your ad drove sales. Too many marketers think that a really clever commercial will drive sales…wrong.
2wo: Allowing their ad agency creative people to develop brand ads that have little to do with actual customers.
3hree: Trying to enhance his/her personal brand while ignoring that your brand is losing market share/customers. It’s easy to spot self-promotional CMO’s. Their egos need to be stroked so they seek out publicity in every form.
4our: CMO’s fail to generate buy-in from key company influencers. This happens all the time and often results in people doing an end run to bring down the CMO.
5ive: Spending too much time out of the office. Got to get those frequent flier miles and stay at great hotels.
6ix: They act like they are superstars and know more than anyone else.
7even: They go with their ad agency to exotic shooting locations where the fine wine and food flows freely.
8ight: They use vanity metrics to show that their marketing is working.
9ine: They take all the credit when sales go up, but blame others when sales decline.
10en: They don’t listen to their customers and treat consumers like market segments. Sorry, but that approach doesn’t work anymore.
There are some really good CMO’s who understand that we can never “know it all when it comes to marketing” but there are just too many who think they are indispensable and a legend in their own minds.
