CMOs are beginning to last longer in their jobs. Executive search firm Spencer Stuart reports that CMO's are staying in their post an average of 45 months, a marked increase from 2005 when the average tenure was only 23.5 months.
So why the increase in job security? I am seeing more and more senior marketing leaders focussing on enterprise marketing solutions, not just branding strategies. CMOs are getting closer to their customers through Big Data, digital technologies, multicultural trends, and more contemporary media strategies. They are working more closely with their company's CIO to develop smarter, data-driven strategies. This is a welcome change from the days when a new CMO would put their stamp on the company by firing the agency and developing yet another advertising campaign.
The new CMO agenda is focused on four big questions:
- How can data and analytics help optimize my company's marketing investment and mix? How do we embrace Marketing Cloud solutions to get more accurate marketing attribution?
- How fast can we become a "mobile-first" marketing organization to get even closer to our customers, one that embraces "mobile as a service"?
- How can we better engage customers who are tuning out of mass media? Can we lessen our dependence on big campaigns and instead re-imagine marketing communications as an always-on, content publishing discipline?
- How can we build a coalition of growth by serving our core customers as well as an increasingly multicultural America?