Digital transformations, brand commitment to social and environmental issues, customer and employee experience or brand reputation … CMOs (Chief Marketing Officers) are challenged by an ever-changing economy and society.
In a world that is changing at an accelerating pace and faced with non-business issues that directly impact the performance of organizations, what are the priorities, the challenges, the brakes but also the opportunities for the function?
To answer all these questions, ADETEM starts in partnership with BVA CMO Profilesthe first edition ofObservatory for Marketing Developments*, which reveals the main professional trends, a typology of profiles and an overview of the CMO of tomorrow…
Expansion of the marketing domain: A strategic function that emerges stronger from the crisis
Despite the health crisis accelerating certain trends and practices, forcing many organizations to reinvent the customer journey but also the employee experience, The vast majority of marketers (42%) believe their role has emerged from the crisis stronger.
A period that also confirmed that Scaling the customer experience which is now just as important as the brand, the offer or the communication (See chart below – Percentage of time CMOs spend on each mission) .
The marketing function therefore appears strengthened by the crisis and well established in its fundamental contribution to the business.
A situation that strengthens the feeling for almost all professionals (92%). the marketing function is a profession of the future.
A feeling that nevertheless contradicts the reality on site, because ” Attract talent and integrate new skills does not appear at the top of the CMO’s most important mission table today.
However, a fact that needs to be put into perspective: if just 9% of CMOs spend most of their time doing it today, 29% think it should be part of their job tomorrow.
Better : This human capital issue is at the top of the missions that should fall within their remit in the future.
Marketing as a CSR accelerator?
The observatory also highlights the rise of power Accelerator/facilitator function of the CMO in the responsible transformation of the company.
While this new role is not among the top 5 missions reported by CMOs today, as the company’s mission evolves, it will become a larger part of the daily lives of marketers.
9 out of 10 CMOs already adhere to the core CSR missions :
– promoting diversity and parity (93% of CMOs support this point),
– limit waste and promote a circular economy (91%),
– fight against all forms of discrimination (89%),
– Fight against climate change (88%)
– encourage as many people as possible to access their offers and services (80%),
– Take action to encourage best practices from their customers and help change the business model (75%).
In the eyes of marketing experts, one field remains inaccessible to the company for the time being: political commitment in the sense of the term election. Only 9% think encouraging people to vote is part of the company’s mission…
The “next big things” in the CMO toolkit
To remain efficient, the same observation is shared by the community of professionals surveyed.
Driven by the evolution of consumer practices and the proliferation of an ever-changing environment—particularly technology—it is imperative for CMOs to continuously innovate practices and tools.
Of the 21 marketing levers or practices tested, 15 are considered essential to the marketing function today and tomorrow.
The pillars remainwithout surprise social and digital marketing, benchmarking, analysis of market trends, customer knowledge and related data.
But new playing fields are emerging, albeit lagging behind current practice, because they sometimes require organizations to rethink their industrial or economic model.
Draw me tomorrow’s CMO…
In a context where the marketing function has to deal with expanding its own missions and practices, the issue of skills, and consequently training, becomes key.
If agility and adaptability (52%), as well as the digital culture (51%), are among the top three ranked marketers data culture (61%) and the business performance (49%) as important skills to acquire in order to be successful in the role.
The customer culture confirms its importance today (49%) and tomorrow (43%).
New to the top 8 skills to strengthen tomorrow : innovation, important for 36% of working people.
Note as an aside the decline of creativity and curiosity – however, often portrayed as fundamental qualities essential to the marketing function.
*Methodology:
Online study conducted from July 20th to September 10th, 2021 with 147 marketing leaders from companies of all sizes and industries based in France.
