This summary starts from an uncomfortable position. A lot has been written about declining CMO influence, boards and C-suite colleagues are unclear how marketing adds value, and some companies have replaced the CMO with a chief growth officer.
Against that, it presents five drivers that separate overperforming organizations, and treats each as an area where the CMO can step up and help the business deliver.
Key findings
- On grounding, overperforming CMOs drive an aligned organizational understanding of stakeholders, help the business engage them, and make sure stakeholder perspectives are represented in strategic decision-making.
- On reimagining, winning CMOs make sure their companies prioritize long-term thinking and help develop a compelling vision of the future with a clear and inspiring corporate purpose.
- On focus, influential CMOs act as an active strategic partner within the C-suite, making sure a holistic strategy identifies the areas of adaptive change that need managing differently.
- On organizing, the study documents CMOs working with the communications chief on corporate branding, with HR on employee brand and experience, with the CFO on new KPIs and investor storytelling, and with the CEO on purpose.
- On unleashing, Da Vinci leadership combines right-brain and left-brain thinking with empathy, creating an environment where employees and partners feel safe to share ideas.
What the CMO brings that others do not
On intangibles, the argument is about transferable skill. CMOs can build on their experience of brand valuation to help the business measure and manage intangible assets such as customer data, employee loyalty and reputation.
On transparency, the contribution is perspective. CMOs can provide a window on the real world to the organization, and authenticity with a deep connection to purpose is what builds trust among stakeholders.
On ecosystems, the role is to push. Overperforming CMOs press their organizations to excel at collaboration beyond the company’s boundaries, with NGOs, governments and regulators.
On incentives, the point is alignment between leadership rewards and long-term growth strategy, so that success is judged on more than financial metrics.
How strategy is supposed to work
Prioritizing a stakeholder is legitimate provided the organization also spells out how it adds value for the others. Overperformers accept the complexity of the whole value creation strategy and take short-term decisions in the context of the long term.
They also stop things. Initiatives that do not align with strategy are ended, senior leader incentives are aligned, and adaptive and performative change are handled as two different problems.
The conclusion offered to marketing leaders
The study is presented as a practical framework rather than an argument, giving CMOs a clear direction for stepping up and an active role in guiding their organizations.
Its partners are named as the ANA, WARC, the Marketing Society, Spencer Stuart, the Page Society, Yale and CKGSB.
Scope and limitations
This is an executive summary. It states the drivers and implications in prose and carries no quantitative results, pointing readers elsewhere for the data, interviews and event presentations.
Source
This page summarises IRG Oxford Said Impact Study Findings: Increasing CMO Influence by Driving More Humanized Growth, by Institute for Real Growth (IRG), Future of Marketing Institute at the Saïd Business School of Oxford University, October 2023.