WOW! Everyone is having their say about marketing.

The marketing and advertising trade media has been filled with reports on the role and future of marketing. It seems like everyone has an opinion on marketing from its future role and function to how it is funded and its focus for the business.

Increasingly we hear about how major corporations are abandoning the CMO role in favor of the Chief Growth Officer, the Chief Brand Officer, the Chief Customer Officer, the Chief Experience Officer, the Chief Commercial Officer, all beautifully captured by Tom Fishburne – The Marketoonist - here.

Then there is the trend in opinion that marketing needs to change radically, be reinvented, get back to basics, expand to customer experience, contribute and define to popular culture, be more business focused, be a growth driver, manage the customer experience and more. All of these were from headlines in the past week and some are highlighted here. But is it any wonder that marketers are confused, stressed, suffering FOMO?

Here are a few of the articles that got my attention this week.

WHY IT'S TIME TO REINVENT THE MARKETING FUNCTION

It should come as no surprise that some of the world’s most successful companies are abolishing the role of chief marketing officer (CMO). Advertising, or at least traditional advertising, has historically been the core tool that CMOs use for marketing a company's products or services. Yet it has been on the wane ever since the internet came along and turned everything on its head.

WILL WE SEE THE CMO ROLE (AS WE KNOW IT) BEING WIPED OUT SOON?

The chief marketing officer (CMO) function has shaken up quite a bit in recent years, which several companies such as Coca-Cola and Johnson & Johnson (J&J) removing the role altogether. Two years ago, Coca-Cola merged its global chief marketing officer function with “customer and commercial leadership as well as strategy” to create a new chief growth officer (CGO) role. Not long after, J&J also dropped its CMO function after the departure of global CMO Allison Lewi. But does a handful of high profile examples mean the end of marketing as we know it?

TREAT MARKETING AS AN ASSET TO EXTRACT ITS VALUE

Marketing is the one of the most fundamental functions within an organization. When done correctly, it has the ability to rally people around a cause, move people toward a product or service, or change perceptions about an organization. But the uninitiated often misunderstand it. Yet too often, marketing is generalized as an expense and is usually one of the first line items cut by companies when they are facing difficulties and tightening budgets. All true, but how do you propose we define the value that is to be extracted?

‘THE MARKETER OF THE FUTURE MUST BE A BUSINESS PERSON FIRST’

Facebook’s chief marketing officer Antonio Lucio has offered his view on what the role of the marketer will become in a time when the position is evolving to meet various business needs, stating that they must be about the business but also be able to multi-task to achieve numerous business objectives. I am just wondering as to why they should not be this now?

MARKETERS CAN NO LONGER IGNORE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE

Customer experience is now just as much a part of marketing as storytelling – meaning brands can no longer afford to have poor interactions with their audience at any part of the consumer journey, Bonsey Jaden CEO Daniel Posavac has warned. But when many marketers have only the promotional lever to pull where is the authority to define customer experience?

PERFORMANCE VS BRAND MARKETING: IS IT ONE OR THE OTHER?

Can brands striving for inspirational brand building also achieve performance marketing success? Or is brand work inconsistent with the metrics, measurement and real-time nature of performance marketing? The answer is YES - now what was the question again?

THE MARKETING ROLE AND OWNING THE P&L

Tom Fishburne, the Marketoonist does it again, highlighting that while the marketing role is always evolving, increasingly marketers are taking on P&L responsibility. That shift from marketing as cost center to marketing as growth engine makes this a particularly exciting time to work in marketing. But sometimes that increased accountability outpaces actual authority. Most of the time, marketers have to market by influence, rather than by direct control.

8 WAYS MARKETERS CAN SHOW THEIR WORK’S FINANCIAL RESULTS

The HBR comes to the rescue with some sage advice based on research and not just opinion. Marketers want to demonstrate financial impact so that they can show accountability for business results, gain the respect of other business leaders, and secure future investment — but the measurements of marketing are often less precise than the measurements of other business activities. How can marketers overcome this challenge? The answer is here.

Marketers are facing many challenges. We have identified six of the most complex here.

But this is more than just an opinion, it is based on hundreds of projects we have undertaken helping marketers and their organisations solve these challenges. Of course though, if any of these issues have piqued your curiosity or raised concerns for you or you simply want to discuss the implications and opportunities let me know.

Cheers

Darren