Why we specifically focus on six themes in our CMO Thrive Guide

CMOs have never been more valuable and never been more vulnerable and that needs to change. Having worked with 150 of the best and brightest CMOs and helping them develop iconic brands - from tech disruptors to legacy corporates - creating category-leading narratives across travel, fintech, entertainment, wellness, marketplaces and more, we’ve had a front-row seat in seeing what works and what doesn’t and the difference between CMOs that survive, and the elite group that really thrive.?

The modern CMO is an incredibly sophisticated role, requiring a unique mix of creative, commercial, tech and cultural expertise. Since our remit often leads us to informally mentor many throughout their onboarding, we were repeatedly found that there’s no proper resource to guide that critical first 12 months where the seeds of success or failure are sown.?

Our hope is that it maximizes the impact of CMOs of all tenures as they seek to build iconic category-defining brands, by exploring six big themes in six chapters from focusing on how you can build your key alliances, rally your teams, build high-performance cultures and show up at your best, whatever the pressure to covering discipline focused critical areas of growth, data/martech and integrating performance and purpose:

Chapter 1: Why it matters to learn & leverage the culture

“Culture eats strategy for breakfast”, a quote attributed to Peter Drucker, is a warning for incoming CMOs: you will fail to have influence in your new organizational culture unless you

first take time to understand it. We’ve learnt that valuable insights, ideas, and experiences may struggle to gain traction until the CMO can work out how to ‘dock’ with the existing culture.

There are 4 areas to focus on:

1. Cracking the culture code
2. What worked there, won’t work here
3. Leveraging organizational culture is key to plans becoming reality
4. Getting to grips with culture is harder in a hybrid world

Chapter 2: Why it matters to define your role in driving growth

Growth is the lifeblood of any business. It breathes life and prevents stagnation. The same is true for your personal trajectory as a CMO. It’s critical that you, your work, and your teams are deeply connected with the company’s growth agenda.

At a company level, growth is hard. Whether it’s CPG or consumer tech, companies have to fight harder than ever for every sale and every new user. Your CEO is under constant pressure to deliver top- and bottom-line growth, and that pressure is tripled if they are leading a listed company. Becoming the CEO’s growth whisperer is a brilliant way to ensure you avoid the concerning trend of an increasing CEO/ CMO divide.

Chapter 3: Why it matters to recruit and rally your communities

The cliché that marketing is a relationship business may be old, but it still holds true. Ensuring your success as an incoming CMO isn’t a solo mission. You’ll be more effective and enjoy it more if you find and cultivate your coalitions. Batman may have won the occasional battle, but no one wanted to sit beside him in the canteen.

To build credibility and trust throughout the business, it is vital to solidify your reputation vertically and horizontally. Think about it like building your own NPS score. The most influential CMOs we see are T-Shaped: the reach of their influence is broad while also going deep into the belly of the organization. Not only do you need to build trusted relationships within your company you also need to build credibility with the CEO’s most critical stakeholders (the Board, investors, etc.)

Building coalitions will do more than just increase your influence. Coalitions create a hive brain providing valuable insights and perspectives on the performance of the organization and of yourself. Seeking multiple viewpoints from colleagues will help to reveal many solutions.

The ultimate test of a CMO’s success is turning the strategic marketing ambition into a reality, and its successful execution depends on you building cross-organizational support.

Chapter 4: Why it matters to make your martech matter

The marketing value equation has changed. You might be evaluating your CMO role through the lens of: “What budget can I play with?” Think instead: “What data can I play with?”

It’s not enough for CMOs to simply understand data; you need to intentionally control and influence it. Of CMOs surveyed in a Capgemini study, 74% said they had some level of responsibility for data and technology, with 33% directly responsible for influencing the budget (Capgemini, September 2021 ). And this is an area of constant change, with the tech available to marketers rapidly innovating and the amount of customer data at any given time rapidly increasing—approximately 329 million terabytes of data are created each day (Statista, November 2023 ).

If you want to thrive as an influencer of martech, you need to piece together this data, find the right tools for it, and get the right people on board.

You have a few critical areas working against you. One is perception: CMOs were ranked second-to-last as members of the C-suite who best understand the importance, use, and bottom-line benefits of technology to business (Rackspace, June 2021 ). Next, even if you have deep martech knowledge in one arena, your new role might be at an organization or industry that uses data in a fundamentally different way. Finally, you will inherit the legacy tech stack, which your predecessor may have accumulated without a clear strategy, leaving you with the baggage.?

In short, the wrong martech can pull you into a vicious cycle of underutilization, undermined credibility, and underuse of your capability.

Chapter 5: Why it matters to put purpose into practice

The role of corporations is changing. The world is facing urgent environmental and social challenges that governments cannot tackle alone. Your business needs to play its part. Don’t think about it as just doing the right thing; it’s the only way to ensure your business has a sustainable business model and operating environment.

Purpose has many dimensions. The previous chapters should be helpful for you to get clarity on the purpose for yourself, the leadership team, and the marketing organization. But other factors need to be brought in—purpose needs to align with planetary and social needs. The more our purpose and cultural and commercial responsibilities are lined up, the more impactful we will be.?

This chapter? explores how you can use company-wide purpose as a critical lever for driving positive commercial and cultural change, because:

1. Purpose drives productivity and pride
2. Making a difference drives difference
3. But only if your purpose strategy is authentic and actionable

Chapter 6: Why it matters to look after yourself

Every senior executive faces the risk of burnout. Every leader is pushed to work faster, always be on (especially in a remote working environment) and become a global phenomenon. Nearly 70% of global C-suite executives say they have seriously considered quitting for a job that better supports their well-being, and 73% reported that they aren’t able to take time off (Deloitte, 2022 ). For you as a CMO, this challenge is heightened because of how highly versatile and visible your role has to be.

This final chapter is designed to help CMOs thrive in the role whilst also making a success of the things that matter elsewhere in life—all whilst building your reputation to ensure that you have your pick of roles to progress to when it’s time to move on, especially as:

1. The role has expanded exponentially over the last 10 years
2. The CMO’s increased visibility is accompanied by increased scrutiny
3. What’s good for you is good for the business

Each chapter is accompanied by key learnings, anecdotes, case studies and tools to give actionable pointers and tips which will elaborate more on in future pieces. In the meanwhile, you can download the whole CMO Thrive Guide here for free: https://twentyfirstcenturybrand.com/cmothriveguide/