This outline sets up an argument in two halves. The first is that the CMO role is poorly understood and losing ground in the boardroom. The second is that traditional growth formulas no longer work, which creates the opening for a marketing leader who can redefine growth rather than defend the function.
Its conclusion is stated plainly. CMOs who focus on driving real growth will not be replaced by a chief growth officer, because they will already be acting like one.
Key findings
- The role expanded faster than the experience behind it. Many former heads of communication took the CMO title without experience of the full remit, which the outline defines as both where to play and how to win.
- Marketers are perceived to have spent too much time on shiny digital toys and on success metrics disconnected from the language of business, producing a generation of CMOs with no experience of making markets.
- Board room influence is being divided among new titles, with chief digital, chief experience and chief customer officers taking pieces of the growth agenda.
- The consequence is job security. CMO tenure is half the average and a third of the average CFO tenure, and leading companies have replaced CMOs with chief growth officers.
Why growth itself got harder
Barriers to entry are disappearing and new players are breaking the rules by providing better service at lower cost. Even disrupters are being disrupted, and most cannot buy the businesses disrupting them.
Growth is also harder to hold, with market saturation and a slowing of globalization. Where it exists it is harder to find, pushing manufacturers toward new retailers, niche acquisitions and direct-to-consumer routes.
Consumers arrive with expectations transferred from other categories, demand full transparency on pricing, features and product claims, and resist anything that reads as false.
Stakeholders no longer accept the appearance of growth
Investors are described as exposed to the risks of short-termism and angry at zero-based budgeting used for value extraction rather than to fuel growth, with demand rising for a long-term and more purposeful approach.
Communities put the license to operate under threat, with sustainability protest and alternative models of growth entering the conversation.
Employees exert pressure through the labor market and through visibility. Marketing and sales have fallen in recruiting rankings, and transparency about corporate culture is forcing better behavior.
What real growth companies do differently
The first difference is an abundant view of the market. They define their market in terms of deep consumer motivations and needs, take a long-term perspective, stick with their bets while reallocating resources inside them, and define the market so that they hold no more than 3 percent share.
The second is connection. They break down internal barriers and drive entrepreneurial growth instead of process orientation, with LinkedIn analysis showing overperformers have 5.5 times more connections between junior and senior staff, and marketing staff 3.5 times more connected with HR, IT and finance colleagues.
The third is experience. They accept that the customer will always be dissatisfied, work on growing the category rather than taking share, hunt for friction to remove, and combine data with human insight and technology with creativity.
Across all three, real growth winners articulate ambition as positive impact on people, and connect their KPIs and incentive plans to that impact rather than to sales targets alone.
What a real growth CMO looks like
The profile is deliberately unglamorous. These are business leaders who bring the human into the company, working across experience, commerce, communication and technology, rather than celebrity marketers.
They foster collaboration between marketing and sales, connect internally and externally, are fully financially literate, and help rewrite the culture script. The outline attaches a named example to each quality: courageous, passionate, humble and empowering.
The closing case study is McDonald’s, where the first year went not to a new campaign but to where to play and how to win, followed by fast action teams and the experience of the future.
Scope and limitations
This is an article outline rather than a finished article. Sections are marked with target word counts, several supporting claims are flagged only as data points to be supplied, and the case studies are listed as potential.
Source
This page summarises The CMO as driver of Humanized ‘Real Growth’, by IRG, 2018.