The Single Biggest Problem for CMOs

I was asked an interesting question the other day following our 3 year study with CMOs wondering what is the single biggest problem CMOs are faced with. I had no shortage of possibilities to pull from. This industry is a mess and its more often than not even under fire from within.

Today's CMOs are wrestling with a multitude of challenges; some of which include:

• CEOs and boards who disregard the importance of branding
• Limited funding and the typical challenge of stretching their dollars
• Difficulty in finding good partners
• Having to manage multiple partners which means recruiting them, qualifying them, getting the work done and keeping them all on message (sometimes up to 20 partners)
• Accountability for marketing dollars and justification of results
• Dealing with a fluid marketplace where customers have ever increasing expectations
• Competition
• Ensuring that employees are executing the brand promise
• Managing customer touchpoints
• Creating a branded space with the facilities
• Creating campaigns that are attention getting and somehow improve the organization's key performance indicators
• Collecting data, doing research and crunching numbers
• Managing their internal teams and playing political games and managing daily headaches when things go wrong
• Dealing with difficult people and difficult attitudes
• etc.

In my attempt to answer the question...it is obvious. The biggest problem facing CMOs today is that they have too many problems. This is why CMO turnover is so high and accounts go into review every 2 years.

I think we are in a time where we have to be focused and slow things down a little. This is a time where our industry needs to be paying very close attention to strategy, partnerships and priorities.

Unfortunately, we can't go back to basics. The new marketing model is much more complex. We are in an era where marketing's integration with cross-functional business units is a must. This means multiple problems and multiple things to pay attention to. A failure in any one of these areas is a show stopper. It is a lot of pressure and unless this industry begins to lose the egos and the attitudes that we have everything covered, we can expect things to continue towards chaos. CMOs and Agencies will continue to struggle.   

Comments

[Ron Shevlin]

"the biggest problem is that they have too many problems."

Clever, Mr. Gentile, clever.

Personally, I think you hinted at the biggest problem in the post after this one.

The biggest problem CMOs have is that they're often held accountable for things for which they have no control or influence over.