The stereotypical view of the CMO has been the Chief Advertising Officer, reinforced by the popular AMC series Mad Men (I admit to being addicted to the show…).
But the CMO’s remit from the CEO and management team is much broader than creating winning advertising campaigns, argues Joe Tripodi, chief marketing and commercial officer of The Coca-Cola Company. “They want the CMO to be the chief growth officer of the company. They want the CMO to drive cultural change, and they want the CMO to build capability with people.”*
Nigel Dessau, currently CMO of Stratus Technology and ex-CMO of both AMD and StorageTek, says “I spent 40% of my time marketing, 30% on corporate issues and 30% on the road, mostly with customers. It is surprising how little you get to do your nominal job as head of marketing.”
“There is a very unique strength that most leading CMOs have: helping to lead a group of professionals from marketing as sales support to strategic marketing,” says Suzanne Lowe, author of The Integration Imperative, a book written for professional services marketers. “Professional services marketing is a very young profession; construction management, for example, is RFP driven. All professional services marketers need to shift from being order-takers / responders to move to focusing on identifying the critical factors of competitive success for their firms. And they need to help their firms make this shift.”
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Next: Congrats! You're a Marketing Executive - Now What???
*"What do you want from me? How high-performing CMOs exceed expectations," Spencer Stuart, November 2010,
But the CMO’s remit from the CEO and management team is much broader than creating winning advertising campaigns, argues Joe Tripodi, chief marketing and commercial officer of The Coca-Cola Company. “They want the CMO to be the chief growth officer of the company. They want the CMO to drive cultural change, and they want the CMO to build capability with people.”*
Nigel Dessau, currently CMO of Stratus Technology and ex-CMO of both AMD and StorageTek, says “I spent 40% of my time marketing, 30% on corporate issues and 30% on the road, mostly with customers. It is surprising how little you get to do your nominal job as head of marketing.”
“There is a very unique strength that most leading CMOs have: helping to lead a group of professionals from marketing as sales support to strategic marketing,” says Suzanne Lowe, author of The Integration Imperative, a book written for professional services marketers. “Professional services marketing is a very young profession; construction management, for example, is RFP driven. All professional services marketers need to shift from being order-takers / responders to move to focusing on identifying the critical factors of competitive success for their firms. And they need to help their firms make this shift.”
_____
Next: Congrats! You're a Marketing Executive - Now What???
*"What do you want from me? How high-performing CMOs exceed expectations," Spencer Stuart, November 2010,
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