CMO? Unilever says no
One of the world's biggest advertisers no longer employs a chief marketing officer. Unilever's most senior marketer, Conny Braams, has dropped the word "marketing" from her title to become the company's first chief digital and commercial officer. That shift in title, said Unilever, reflects how “the convergence of media, entertainment and commerce has blurred the lines between marketing and sales.” In her expanded role, Braams will oversee global sales. "We can now build brands and convert sales at the same time," she said, "so why would [we] artificially split that?”
B2B | B2C | D2C Marketing Strategist & Digital CX Transformation Orchestrator ? Life Sciences | Leveraging cross-industry expertise in global digital omnichannel customer engagement for patient-centric business growth
Technology has become a key connector between sales and marketing. It is also an additional marketing mix element through which customer experience can be holistically designed and optimized. We cannot isolate functions like customer service, sales, marketing, or even supply chain from meeting our customers' needs as businesses. Of course, this is not about sales or marketing, or digital and marketing, let alone about commerce and communications. The better internal collaboration exists in the company, the faster the desired outcome will be brought. The more seamless journeys (that reflect back on that collaborative approach) we can design for achieving the business goals, the higher and the more profitable the customer engagement will be. A CMO/CSO/CDO/CCO/CXO title is just a title but also shows the clarity of direction that companies like UL want to take by bringing more commercial focus to deliver on their purpose as businesses should.