Here is a great article from Stephen Denny on CMOs and blogging.  The article pretty much speaks for itself, so I will just add my “amen”.

I came across this article on how the American Marketing Association has update the “official” definition of “marketing”.  The article is a good read and shows how marketing professionals are struggling to adjust to the massive changes occurring.  In particular, I enjoyed their take on the role of a CMO (emphasis is mine):

The prime objective of the chief marketing officer (CMO), is to maximise sustainable profitable revenue, while minimizing the use of marketing costs and investment.

I like this definition.  I have long felt that if you have a CFO managing the bottom-line/business formula (profit cop) side of the business, it makes sense to have an executive managing the revenue side of things.   By focusing on ROI, it focuses marketing executives to plan and act more efficiently - which sometimes means actually spending less money on marketing.

Here is a great article on how CMOs need to interact better with CFOs if they want more influence over business strategy and budget. In particular, this paragraph caught my attention:

A recent study by Marketing Management Analytics (MMA), found that just 7 percent of finance executives are satisfied with their company’s ability to measure marketing ROI. In the same study, only 23 percent of marketing executives had confidence in their ability to measure returns, still not exactly a ringing endorsement.

Marketing doesn’t have to be a guessing game, but it becomes one for two reasons:

1. Marketing executives get list-centric. Because they struggle to show results, they quickly gravitate to showing off their punch list of marketing tasks. If you want to be treated like an executive, you have to stop acting like an employee.
2. Marketing executives are using dated data-points like CPM. Cost per Thousand is largely irrelevant with the advent of TiVos and web-based content. Marketing executives would serve themselves well to implement closed-loop tactics such as web traffic and conversion percentages. In addition, best key performance indicator for marketing ROI is cost per customer. At a minimum, you can at least show the finance executives that your marketing efforts are leading to increased sales while lowering over-all marketing costs. That should keep them happy.

I have a Google alert set up for “CMO”. It is interesting to capture the various articles, news alerts, etc. about CMOs. By the way, these stories are best defined as “Somebody was hired to replace somebody that was fired”. The purpose of this blog entry is to provide an on-going update of how various companies and media sources define the roles and responsibilities of a CMO

“… provide company-wide brand strategy leadership”. Discovery Channel’s new CMO.

“… covers consumer-targeted initiatives as well as trade brand-building.” Ion’s new CMO.

“… a significant influence on our brand strategy.” Popeye’s new CMO.

Updated 02/18/08

“Kershisnik oversees research and development, strategic insights, operations innovation, brand marketing, field marketing, media, diversity marketing and creative/advertising production.” Wendy’s new CMO.

” … in charge of revenue growth, sales and marketing, franchising and the company’s distribution channels for the company.” Thrifty’s new CMO. [Yikes - should they also include janitor and company pilot)

Here is an excellent article from CNN on the travails of being a modern CMO. I have extracted a few key points for emphasis - the bold areas are my “amens” …

A recent day in the life of Gitow as CMO included a meeting about promotions on the Web site, a discussion with store managers about membership programs, and reviewing analytics about its customers. CMOs must think “in a multidimensional way. Our job is to be one step ahead of these channels and understand where the customer is moving,” Gitow said.

“The Street, CEOs, boards need short-term wins and unfortunately that flies in the face of long-term consumer-oriented brand building. CMOs are looking for short-term wins, product launches, quick hits, but the reality is very few of them are getting huge wins,” Welch said.

The role of the successful CMO is no longer “about creating a clever TV commercial or coercing someone to buy your product. What works is creating a powerful product that people want to buy and people talk about like the iPhone,” Scott said. Companies such as Google create experiences for consumers with minimal advertising.

The mostly 40-year-old CMOs need to understand what drives Gen X and Y consumers. Welch says his teenage daughter talks about her 600 closest friends on Facebook, noting that she hasn’t met most of them. “CMOs must be unafraid to connect with this generation and get into their skin to understand new consumers,” he said.

Don’t blame the CMO for the high turnover rate, Neale-May says. “It’s more about the organization they’re managing and the corporation they’re involved in. CMOs must be change agents,” he said. Until CEOs do a better job of defining what the CMO does and aligning support, turnover will continue.

This article prompted this thought …

Why is the CMO always the person stuck with bridging the gap between what a company wishes it was and what it really is? I can be really hard on CMOs, but playing Marriage Counselor between the customers and the brand can be a really tough gig. Maybe that’s why the average tenure is only 18 months.

This is why I believe you have to figure out what/who you really are before you market what you wish you were. More on that here …

I found this by way of Chris Hoskin’s “Raw Stylus” blog. It talks about the 6 Factors that make a marketing leader successful.

You need to read the entire article, but I wanted to point out #5 for emphasis.

5. Build influence across the company. The role of the CMO is evolving from “market communications” to corporate business strategy, putting the customer first in everything the firm does.

As we have been saying, because of the consumer revolution the lines are blurring between business strategy and marketing.

This is a must read from Forbes on the roles and responsibilities of a CMO. In fact, it would be the great starter content for a CMO job description. Go to the article here.

Too often it seems like the term CMO is just a title, not an actual role that is really the “Chief” of marketing. It seems like the operational executives (CEO, CFOs, COOs, etc) like the idea of a CMO, but are just not willing to provide the control that is necessary to actually do the job. Let’s put it this way, the CMO should be THE PERSON responsible for all things related to customer-facing. This would include the traditional role of advertising and branding, but also customer service, sales, and probably even product development. In addition, the CMO should have an active role in internal branding - recruiting, morale, etc.

As usual, Seth Godin says it better than me.

It is interesting to see how companies define the role of a CMO. Here is a description from a recent announcement from LexisNexis: “… effectively developing and communicating the value of all LexisNexis brands and product platforms as well as the transformation of the company into a total solutions provider.” There is obviously a lot of corporate-speak in there, but I do appreciate that they used the word the term “communicating”.