Is the CMO Position in Jeopardy?

Francisco Goya, Los fusilamientos del tres de mayo, 1814 Museo del Prado, Madrid

The Marketing Consigliere posed that question to the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Network group in LinkedIn.

Mark Chmiel, an EVP and the Chief Marketing & Innovation Officer at Denny’s, had this to say:

“I think quite the opposite–the CMO is becoming more important and influential. The key is to have a very strong working relationship with the CEO, EC and Board. If so, the CMO is not just the marketing leader, but the brand and company leader—again with and through the CEO. Obviously, some CEO’s have their “own vision”, however the opportunity is to drive your (or the brand’s vision) through the power and influence of the CEO and Board. The question is do CMO’s have vision, and do they know how to share that vision so that others (mainly CEO) can accept and embrace it and actually think of it as their own.”

Meanwhile, Ann Casey, up until recently the CMO at law firm Cozen & O’Connor, makes this interesting observation:

“Certainly true in services marketing and B2B, less true in product and B2C marketing where SKUs can be counted. Services marketing is successful when it retains the organization’s competitive equity, unless the pockets are very deep and then you can blow competition off the map. Marketing has to be viewed as an investment – with all appropriate ROI tracking in place – and not a drain on expenses (until we become heroes with the famed 4th quarter give-back we’re all so familiar with). We need more CEOs with marketing experience for this pradigm shift to occur.”

Mark and Ann, thank you for your contribution to this discussion.  The Marketing Consigliere’s belief is that in many instances CEOs will continue lose faith in CMOs who fail to adopt solid, measurable network-centric marketing tactics that align and meet the revenue objectives of the firm.  Unfortunately, many bright and hardworking CMOs who are trying to positively transform their organizations with network-centric marketing will still be sacrificed on the corporate altar due to ignorance on the part of the other C-level leadership who do not give the CMO the latitude they need but are impatient for the results.

Is there anyone else that feels passionate about this?