The study is described by its own scale before any finding is given. It drew on over 250 leading global CMOs and 10,231 respondents across 92 countries, of whom 3,565 completed the survey.
Its founding observation is a mismatch between practice and structure. What marketing does is described as changing beyond recognition, while how marketing is organized within organizations is said to look worryingly the same as 50 years ago.
Key findings
- The headline conclusion is about ownership rather than technique. In a digital age where winning brands offer seamlessly integrated total experiences across multiple touch points, the study argues marketing becomes too important to be left just to marketers.
- Ten differences are forecast, and they mix audience, market and organizational change. Millennials leading, the global middle class doubling, near market transparency worldwide, big insights prevailing over big data, and integration as the number one organizational priority.
- Influence is presented as something CMOs earn with business language. The study states that demonstrating business acumen is a license to operate and a ticket to influence the organization.
- Structure is explicitly put second. The recommendation is strategy before structure, argued through a CMO who says everybody goes to the org chart first when the question should be about goals, the definition of success and the process for achieving it.
- Training is reported as separating over-performers from under-performers across the board. The study states that across all marketing excellence areas, companies with marketing capability training programs outperform their competitors significantly.
The five organizing principles
The principles are written as instructions rather than as observations. Connect marketing with the rest of the company, inspire all stakeholders around a shared purpose, ensure total focus on key metrics and targets, organize to deliver seamless integration, and build skills for marketing in a digital age.
The connection to human resources is set out in unusual detail by IBM’s Jon Iwata. He describes influencing the criteria of hiring, onboarding, management, training, development, recognition and reinforcement, and marketing partnering to guide company culture.
Marketing roles are expected to specialize into three. Think for analytics, Feel for engagement and Do for production and content, all coordinated by an overall purpose and marketing strategy.
Scope and limitations
This document is a findings summary and a service offer in one. Roughly the last third of it prices in-house workshops and a company benchmarking product, so its framing is commercial as well as analytical.
The study was run by EffectiveBrands in partnership with the ANA, and its comparisons are marketers reporting on their own organizations.
Source
This page summarises Marketing2020 Key Study Findings.