What poses the biggest threat to brands today? The future.
The future is unimaginable. We can look at trends and imagine what the future holds, but we cannot see the future. This is a terrifying context for brands trying to manage risk and innovate—at a time when their survival depends on it. How, then, can companies better plan for relevance tomorrow, and what will be the role of the CMO?
If you thought your CMO needed to be a sociologist in the past, in the future your CMO must be the C-suite's Sherlock Holmes—an intuitive genius of customer behavior. Losing sight of your customers for even a single second can put you in trouble. Sociography is the field that will help you truly understand your customers and their behavior, studying the characteristics that influence how people receive and perceive brand messages, which ultimately define how your market behaves socially. Sociology, the study of human behavior, will provide insight into the attitudes, values, influences, hobbies, and passions of your customers that will be critical for the future CMO. Is the CMO of the future even a CMO at all? Do they need to be more of a futurist? More than ever, the CMO plays a crucial role in preparing the company for the different scenarios that the future may bring.
User experience, often owned by the CMO, will gain increasing importance in a world where there is little difference between products other than the experiences and services wrapped around them. User experience is the perception your customers have of your brand, and no position plays a more vital role in shaping that customer perception than the CMO. In the past, during times of uncertainty, we have seen brands cut marketing budgets or reduce the power and influence of the CMO. Your CMO must be just as important as all other C-level executives.
The CMO must understand that they can no longer operate with a traditional Marketing Director mindset. The CMO must see themselves as a true captain of the ship, responsible for guiding the company's direction from a high level. In the modern business world, lines are blurring faster than ever. A telecom provider is now an entertainment company (AT&T). A retailer is now a digital fitness brand (Under Armour). A movie rental service is now a content production company (Netflix). Every day you see mergers and acquisitions transforming entire industries. Markets are moving faster than at any time in history.
Just as the market changes, so do our corporate leaders. In fact, the CMO must be the most perceptive of C-level executives—someone capable of seeing trends in media, content, and branding overall, more than other executives who have their heads down focused solely on company products and services. Identifying major trends, surveying the landscape, and pinpointing growth opportunities now fall squarely within the CMO's domain.
Here are eight skills of the future CMO.
1. CMO and Strategic Direction of the Company
We can see that customers are not loyal; they quickly gravitate toward offerings that make their lives easier and better. For example, when Uber emerged, taxi users didn't cling to the taxi industry, defending it and caring deeply for its continued prosperity. Users abandoned the taxi industry overnight to join Uber's seamless new experience. That said, the CMO's role is unique because the CMO understands the user in a way no other executive does. And the person who knows the user ultimately needs to shape the company's strategy, because profits follow companies that are obsessed with user behavior. If you want to identify opportunities that could help you, just ask your customers, or ask your CMO whose job it is to know.
2. The CMO Presents a Vision of the Future to the Board of Directors
Historically, the CMO was not involved with the corporate board of directors, but in the future, the CMO will play a greater role in persuading the board. After all, the CMO has their finger on the pulse of the customer. The customer of the future will exert a huge influence on the company's future direction. If a company excludes the CMO from board-level conversations, it fails to understand the importance of marketing. In the age of user experience, marketing has been catapulted to new levels of importance. It is crucial that the board listens to the C-level executive who is most connected to the customer.
Today, the CMO is largely responsible for raising awareness of the company's products and services. Marketing has always served a support role to sales. However, in the future, the board needs the CMO to be the eyes and ears of the customer. The CMO's role will focus less on exclusively serving sales and more on overall customer strategy and engagement—from corporate strategy through awareness, education, customer engagement, and service. That being said, the future of marketing is more about customer engagement than strictly traditional advertising and marketing messaging.
3. The CMO Is a Genius of Data and Design
Coca-Cola recently eliminated its CMO role, instead promoting a Chief Growth Officer who combines global marketing, customer engagement, and commercial strategy leadership. As we increasingly rely on data to provide insights, the CMO will need to perform various analytics—becoming a true data enthusiast. When asked what they do, many CMOs today still talk about traditional advertising—such as TV spots, ad campaigns, branding, social media, email, and marketing automation—but in the future, the CMO will play a more strategic role on the executive board. In the future, the seemingly intangible metric of customer engagement will be of paramount importance, and it will be up to the CMO to define what that looks like.
4. The CMO Drives Innovation and Transformation
The CMO will lead digital transformations as user experiences become increasingly tech-assisted, creating an ever more critical experience. A company's ability to digitally transform will determine its success. Not only that, marketing is a completely different beast than it was 30 years ago. Today, the strongest brands curate and co-create the brand—and its content—alongside their customers. The CMO is most deeply involved in customer strategy and increasingly owns all customer programs. That said, it is the CMO's responsibility to know how and when to leverage new technologies.
5. The CMO Is a Master of Personalization
It is difficult for us to look at what brand or product personalization means today and imagine the personalization of tomorrow. Today, personalization is basically the sum of product ads you see after searching for them online. In fact, general customer service doesn't even remember what you told them the last time you reached out; it's a rare day when they do. But tomorrow's personalization will be a core staple of every competitive customer experience, and the CMO will be responsible for making that happen.
6. The CMO Leverages Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning
It is important for the CMO to understand emerging technologies like chatbots and the opportunities and challenges they present. Chatbots are an exciting prospect for businesses. But the jury is still out on how much customers will like using these technologies, as it is still early days. The CMO can play a key role in determining how chatbots will complement other customer engagement efforts. While we have used technology for years, the potential to build truly amazing user experiences through chatbots is now here. Through machine learning, chatbots can better understand what customers are looking for, whether for education, service, or sales. The CMO needs to understand these technologies better than anyone, so if you are a CMO who needs a crash course in machine learning and engineering, you'll want to keep experts close by to pick their brains.
7. The CMO Curates Content Alongside Customers
Today, leading-edge brands understand that communication is no longer a one-way street for customers. Customers are speaking to companies and want to be heard. The challenge for brands is their ability to scale the listening process. The technologies we mentioned earlier—namely machine learning—will help companies become better listeners. We already know that social media is powerful and soon we'll just call it media. Customers want to see themselves reflected in your brand. Today, the CMO must take co-created content with customers seriously. This will help the CMO curate content alongside their customers. Marketing is completely different from what it was 30 years ago. In the future, brands will actually be publishers—not just as we know it today with a blog or social media, but as massive content powerhouses.
8. The CMO Thinks Like a CTO
Understanding how technology can accelerate growth and foster innovation is important for any leader today, especially the CMO. The CMO must identify opportunities for teams to work faster using technology—not just in marketing, but across the entire organization. Your CMO has now become your go-to person when it comes to enterprise transformation. Why? They hold the keys to the customer's heart and mind. Today, markets move faster than at any time in history. Leaders must not only be able to see what's coming around the corner, but also anticipate customer needs. Personalization and tailored interactions are the future of customer experience, so CMOs who know how to think like a CTO and build and manage these experiences will thrive.
These are the traits of the future CMO. Do you see a familiar role, or a different role from the CMO you know today?
If you need more information on this topic, you can get in touch with Alejandro Correia P / CEO at Danilo Black