You could forgive any chief marketing officer out there for feeling a little confused at times. It’s a role that appears to be in constant flux, in tandem with the changing nature of the organisations that CMOs work for. There’s a need to adapt to changes in customer behaviour, in KPIs, in tech, in communications and messaging.
However, as fascinating new research shows, the most successful CMOs have been busily embracing this uncertainty, taking the opportunity to reinvent themselves as disruptors, as creative business drivers and vibe-shifters, both internally and externally.
The work of Worldwide Partners, a global network of more than 95 independent agencies in 50 countries, partnering with brand experience specialists Monigle, the “Confessions of a CMO” report bills itself as “a field guide to how CMOs are evolving to thrive under corporate pressure”.
Tiring of the narrative based around the death of the CMO, the research team opted for a different approach, with participating senior marketing leaders from around the world sharing their thoughts under the cloak of anonymity. Structured as conversations rather than tightly formal questionnaires, they were freed up to discuss the demands of working within increasingly decentralized structures and highlight what goes on behind the scenes, detailing the thought processes and problem-solving that allow them to flourish within an organization.
The responses duly came with a candid forthrightness that was as entertaining as it was revealing. There was a neat symmetry too in the way that the anonymous responses tallied with an emerging pattern of the CMO working undercover, camouflaged and actually perfectly happy for the outside world to believe that the marketer’s power is somehow in decline, because that allows them to focus on what’s in front of them.
Many of the CMOs taking part in the report were actively seeking to turn the various organizational frictions and flashpoints to their advantage rather than a weakness, use them as a sort of fuel, a way to turbo-charge their roles.
It quickly became apparent that the catch-all tag of “chief marketing officer” just won’t do anymore. In order to survive this ever-evolving C-suite environment, the CMO has needed to operate as a kind of hybrid agent, to become a chief mutant officer, a multi-tasking problem solver and, crucially, communicator, able to control the direction of a business and its culture.
John Harris, president and chief executive officer at Worldwide Partners, says that the report’s findings highlight the way that these most successful marketers continue to be forward-facing and ready and able to evolve: “What we heard wasn’t optimism or stubbornness, it was adaptation. Today’s CMOs aren’t clinging to an old version of the role; they’ve learned when to provoke, when to step back, when to steady the room and when to move before permission arrives. That’s not positivity, it’s survival intelligence. And under pressure, it’s made them some of the most versatile leaders in the C-suite.
“Influence has replaced authority. The CMOs who are winning aren’t relying on title or budget, they’re shaping change through timing, mood, narrative, and momentum. That’s not a marketing shift; it’s a leadership shift.”
As Rie Bridges, director of strategy and transformation at Monigle, explains, one key problem is that many (including a fair few marketers themselves) still have this idea of the CMO as Don Draper, a charismatic, attention-hogging ideas person, one that has the rest of those C-suite squares looking on in envy. Instead, the preference now is very much to keep things low key.
The report identifies five new types of CMO: the chief mutiny officer, the chief missing officer, the chief mood officer, the chief meaning officer and the chief momentum officer.
"We didn't ask for permission - we just went ahead because it was the right thing to say" - Anonymous
Chief mutiny officer
Described by Bridges as “the species that is still highly visible in the organization, they're almost putting themselves in a deliberately antagonistic relationship to the organization, but not to see mayhem”. Rather, the aim is to force through change, to help a company to adapt and strengthen, fit and healthy for the demands of our age. After all, it’s only mutiny if you’re inside the ship.
"If your leadership isn't backing you up, you can't actually be a good leader. So managing up feels self-serving, but it's actually serving your team far more" - Anonymous
Chief missing officer
Taking the idea of a chief mutiny officer in a slightly different direction, namely one of strategic invisibility, of going undercover and taking this notion of camouflage and influencing the rest of the C-suite under the cover of alignment. So, where the chief mutiny officer looks to visibly bring about change, the chief missing officer keeps it all hidden.
"A good CMO can wow everyone. It's not just the logic of the business case - it's the way you communicate, the swagger" - Anonymous
Chief mood officer
Ever alert to changes in an organization's overall vibe, this CMO is able to use various skillsets and approaches, some subtle, some occasionally less so (humor can be particularly effective) to lighten moods or re-focus and re-energize a team. This can be a crucial game-changer when the pressure’s on. “We heard so many stories of these CMOs where a decision was on the tip of a pin, and it was the mood in the room that pushed it over,” says Bridges. “And if you know how to do that, you are in control.”
"The wins that really changed things for us came from stating the obvious - things no one had stopped to notice" - Anonymous“
Chief meaning officer
A storyteller, one whose role is to create an organization's unified narrative, a critical skill at a time of such fragmentation and change. Often the chief meaning officer will need to find a way to bring messaging, language, tone and various internal (and external) cultural demands. When so many C-suite voices want to be heard, it’s the chief meaning officer who strives to create a whole that’s greater than the sum.
"I just say: the real risk is we do something that doesn't cut through and nobody sees it. That's the most marketing. That's the risk" - Anonymous
Chief momentum officer
As Bridges points out, it’s often overlooked that a CMO is the most senior creative within an organization. And, as the name suggests, the chief momentum officer pushes things forward, always seeing opportunity where others stubbornly see risk. Doing nothing is always the more perilous option than doing something right.
Many of these skillsets and ways of remodeling and reshaping can be interchangeable and adopted to suit a situation. So, one set of circumstances might call for a more mood-setting approach by a CMO, another could well need some mutinous behavior. Harris cites one quote that didn’t make the final cut of the report, but could comfortably sit within the descriptive of all five CMO varieties: “‘If we only do things that are measurable, we will never do anything memorable’. I love this because we often forget that the things that are memorable are actually what drive pricing power, loyalty, and demand efficiency later, even if they don’t show up cleanly in next quarter’s dashboard.”
Clearly, reports of the CMO’s demise have been overly exaggerated. They have, however, developed and evolved into a new species of C-suite driver and agitator, one that takes all the attendant pressures and challenges and fully utilizes them, flipping them over to become opportunities.
The hope now is that C-suite colleagues will read the report and learn from it, as Harris explains: “The pressures that reshaped the CMO role are now spreading across the C-suite. CMOs were forced to adapt early, to lead without certainty, authority, or perfect information. That’s why this isn’t really about marketing. What we’re documenting is the early evolution of modern executive leadership. The CMOs just happened to get there first.”
“Confessions of a CMO” offers an invaluable guide to this new breed that uses swagger, adversity and risk to navigate a shifting landscape and reposition themselves within their respective organisations as chiefs, as much as marketers.
