The three principles that could save a CMO their job
The chief marketing officer position is slowly losing its gloss. Tasked with building billion-dollar brands, marketing leaders often enjoy the job security of a freelancer.
A recent Gartner survey revealed that CMOs are under increasing pressure from their fellow C-suite executives to justify their value in growing the business. Of the 125 CEOs and CFOs surveyed, only 34% agreed with CMOs on marketing’s role in supporting growth. No wonder CMO job acceptances are waning.
CMOs have historically enjoyed the shortest tenure of all C-suite executives. Gartner’s survey provides a shopping list of reasons why marketers are getting the boot: failure to deliver the promised results from marketing strategy (66%), lack of adaptability (58%) and respect (54%) from senior management.
Delivering promised results is no longer enough, as the report recommends CMOs “raise their leadership profile” and “clarify their role in growth initiatives.”
The problem starts with marketers being judged by the wrong metrics. A recent Meta survey exposed a troubling pattern: 77% of marketers recognise that last-click attribution is flawed, but 78% of businesses still use it to make decisions. Even when marketing leaders know better, they’re stuck using outdated metrics that misrepresent their impact, then get blamed when the numbers don’t tell the whole story.
The timing expectations are equally unrealistic. How B2B Brands Grow, a research paper co-authored by LinkedIn’s B2B Institute and the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute, showed that 96% of B2B marketers expected to see campaign results within two weeks. But marketing doesn’t work that way. The 95-5 rule demonstrates that 95% of potential buyers aren’t ready to buy today but will be sometime in the future. Results are measured in months and years, not days and weeks.
So, how do you sell that reality to your number-crunching CFO and CEO? Here are three actionable strategies to get your C-suite peers onside.
Back to basics
A good place to start is going back to basics: the fundamental and inalienable marketing principles. Fortunately, our industry has been studied more intensively than most other business disciplines, meaning that we know what drives brand growth and builds customer loyalty. Too often, however, we ignore the science and try to reinvent the wheel in vain.
For example, we can extract wisdom from Peter Field and Les Binet’s The Long and Short of It, including the foundational principle that businesses must balance investments between brand (long-term future demand) and performance (short-term current demand). Their research suggests the optimal split is around 60% brand-building and 40% sales activation.
Published over a decade ago, we would be forgiven for thinking that modern-day problems require modern-day solutions. However, WARC’s recent study, The Multiplier Effect, substantiates Field and Binet’s theory, showing that the strongest advertising returns come from using brand equity to fuel commercial performance. This research provides the antidote to the instant gratification marketing strategies we often see today.
Still, CMOs are abandoning these proven, tried-and-tested strategies. Gartner’s CMO Q4 2024 study revealed that brand investments have dropped 40% yearly. This statistic defies logic in the face of the research above. Is it a case of CMOs feeling pressured to show instant results, or sheer forgetfulness?
The irony is that when executed correctly, brand marketing engages current buyers just as effectively as performance marketing, while also building memory structures that attract future buyers over months and quarters to come.
In either case, the research proves that marketing success favours those who play the long game. Marketing leaders must communicate these learnings to the rest of the C-suite if they want to realise those gains.
Fundamentals v fads
Having looked at marketing’s scientific side, we can’t ignore its artistic form.
While experimentation is essential in marketing, there’s a crucial and often overlooked difference between jumping on the latest trend and working with minimal viable products (MVPs). Too many CMOs abandon proven fundamentals to chase the latest shiny object, a pattern likely contributing to their diminishing influence and respect.
The most common mistake is fixating on promotion while neglecting the other three Ps. Yes, flashy campaigns are exciting and can drive real value, but CMOs can gain real influence by contributing customer-centric insights across product, pricing, and place. This broader strategic role demonstrates value beyond simply creative output.
Even within promotion, successful CMOs are returning to core principles. Marketing wizard Dr Grace Kite advocates for a “lots of littles” approach, recognising that consumers now engage through multiple smaller touchpoints rather than grand campaigns alone. But this fragmented reality makes fundamentals more critical, not less.
Prof Byron Sharp of The Ehrenberg-Bass Institute suggests that mental availability (being memorable) and physical availability (being accessible) become critical when managing dozens of micro-interactions. Without clear brand positioning and distinctive assets, a “lots of littles” approach creates platform-led inconsistencies that weaken rather than strengthen your brand.
The overarching lesson is to embrace new tactics but anchor them in proven strategy.
Measure what matters
Returning to the Meta study, CMOs should actively shift away from vanity metrics like last-click attribution, a process already underway at places like Snapchat, to understanding marketing’s incremental impact on business results. This requires probabilistic econometric modelling and marketing mix modelling (MMM). If your KPIs remain short-term and easy to obtain, the C-suite will continue evaluating marketing through the wrong lens.
Indeed, people are predisposed to be shortsighted, and it’s hard to sustain excitement about change that happens slowly and incrementally. Still, CMOs must convince their peers of the long game.
The good news is that sophisticated measurement is becoming more accessible, with Meta and Google introducing open-source MMM solutions like Robyn and Meridian, with more all-encompassing solutions such as Funnel being used by big brands and SMEs alike. The only challenge remains that data and analytics literacy remains a key skill gap for many marketers, according to Marketing Week.
These three values can help CMOs demonstrate their value to a business more effectively. Marketing isn’t broken, for we have the science, the principles, and now the tools. We only need leaders brave enough to follow them, even when the C-suite demands immediate results. That’s how marketing earns its seat at the grown-up table.
Carl Ronander is VP of brand and communication at Funnel.