Saturday, September 01, 2007

Outlive the 23-Month CMO Hurdle.


In an earlier post MarketingWitz notes a report that CMOs are short-lived, lasting 23 months on average. Marketing Witz: Marketing Executives are Short-term. How can Markerting survive? Are CMOs performing that poorly across the board or are they just performing the wrong role? Return on the marketing investment is as much a function of defining the return as measuring the investment. If the CMO is measuring return on the role differently than the CEO then the inevitable turnover will continue.

As CMO, do you view your role to be the prinicpal driver of profitable new growth via new customers and increased sales among current customers? Do you define your role as steward of the brand, enforcing brand positioning and brand communication consistency? Do you view your role as advisor to various constituencies across the organization? Are you the face of the company with the media? If you answered "yes" to most or all of the these questions you are in good company with other CMO's. But CEOs are likely to view the first question as the only truly meaningful measure of marketing return. The other functions are simply marketing approaches to help deliver on the objective of increasing sales and profits. Measuring marketing results based on increased brand awareness or level of internal brand consulting activity is merely an internal marketing process metric while delivering increased sales and profits is the focus of the CEO. Be sure your CMO objectives are clearly defined and in line with the goals of the CEO, and outlive the 23 month hurdle.

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