Shorter CMO Term, and it’s impact on Marketing Goals
The reason lies in the short span of the CMO- Chief Marketing Officer.
In the last few years, it has been noticed that a CMO’s lifespan has decreased drastically. A CMO mostly lasts 36 months in an organization or some cases, even less. That means they will get a maximum of three years to strategize, execute, and analyze the results.
As per Korn Ferry study that involved 1,000 US companies surveyed the tenure of C-suite leaders, it was found that CMO’s had the shortest tenure of three years while CEO’s had the longest tenure of eight years.
That means if left to circumstances, a CEO would work with around three CMO’s during their tenure. Put yourself in the shoes of newly hired CMO, if you know that you are in the organization for a short stint, why would you strive to think of a bigger picture? You will mostly think of short-term solutions rather than a long-term strategy. Due to this reason, a lot of organizations suffer from inconsistency in their marketing plans.
Today marketing has become a lot more complicated. It has become an ecosystem that is continuously upgrading itself. Thriving in a system like this is extremely difficult. By the time a CMO gels up in the new role and the organization, his tenure would be over.
In the current scenario, every time an organization faces harsh business conditions, the CEO changes their C-suite colleagues and the CMO runs the highest risk of being replaced.
They face the highest risk of being replaced because they are mostly judged by the latest quarterly results. It is this short-term approach that has impacted marketing. We are no more thinking about building a better brand. We are running in circles making short fixes, trying to reach our monthly social media goals and organic traffic.
Few months ago, global news was filled with reports on fires in the Amazon forests. People were highly concerned as one of the world’s largest ecosystem was fighting for its life. The reason for wildfire is debatable, but there is an important lesson we all need to learn from these frequent outbreaks of wildfires.
With climate change changing our weather patterns and vegetation, it also increased the risk of wildfires. We deal with these fires by extinguishing them as soon as possible every time there is a small wildfire.
When you suppress these small wildfires, you are begetting a bigger problem in the form of an outbreak of fire that would be extremely devastating. The reason being the fire would be fueled by the left-out deadwood that could have been cleared by these small fires only if people weren’t too quick to quench it.
The left-out dead woods after every wildfire is symbolic of the bigger issue we ignore while fixing smaller issues.
If you think about it, you can draw certain parallels between how wildfires are being dealt with the way the economy is handled. Every time a Bank or a big PSU runs into heavy losses or files for bankruptcy, the easiest way a government fixes them is by announcing bailout packages for them. Such measures are a good fix for a short period, but in the long run, it cripples the economy because when you get better at handling small problems, the irony is it creates a risk of much larger problems which you wouldn’t be prepared for.
You take any economic catastrophe as an example. Be It the great depression in the 1930s to the financial crisis in 2007-2008, the biggest economic wildfire of our times. These financial calamities were rooted in the fact that the leaders didn’t look through the bigger picture. They were busy making short fixes until it all spiraled out of control.
The short-term fix paradox isn’t limited to wildfires or the economy, but it reflects in the way marketing is done in most companies. Marketing is an elaborate process; it has long term goals, and it needs to be in sync with the mission and vision of the company. Today, marketing has become more about making short term fixes and focusing on weekly, monthly, and quarterly goals.
How would you focus on building a better brand if you are more concerned about reducing your bounce rate? How would you focus on building a compelling employer brand if you are worried about getting more engagement on Facebook?
Unless and until, CMO’s aren’t given a long tenure to build a longer road map, as an organization you will never get rid of the bug fixing mentality.
Like extinguishing the small fires can lead to a bigger, more devastating fire someday. Having a short-term approach to marketing will prove fatal to the organization in the long run.
Creating impactful marketing campaigns with evergreen content is the key to become a brand that resonates with your audience. You need to innovate, think through why you are doing what you are doing. Every content piece that goes out in the name of marketing should be a part of the bigger picture. In no way I deny the importance of short-term hacks and fixes, they are necessary, but if your whole marketing revolves around it, then it’s a problem. Think deeper, stop analyzing the worth of your CMO in terms of quarterly results. Ask them what is their vision and how they plan to execute it?
CEO’s and CFO’s get a longer-term to prove their worth, it is time that boards give CMO’s a prolonged inning too. Putting faith in them would help them look beyond quarterly results.
Remember, consistency is the key to be successful. If you are changing your CMO’s every three years, you are disrupting the whole marketing ecosystem of your company. Board of directors and CEO’s need to understand the centrality of the CMO and giving them a longer-term would be the first step towards getting your marketing right.
