Marketing Discussion

INITIAL QUESTION – Do some research on the CMO role and read about a few of the top CMOs in Fortune 500 companies. Then report on your research by responding to the prompts below:

• Describe in your own words the key duties and responsibilities of a CMO in today’s job market
• Select one successful CMO from a Fortune 500 company and explain what you found impressive about that person’s approach to the CMO role Bottom of Form

RESPONSES A AND B

PART A – PLEASE RESPOND TO CLASSMATE DISCUSSION WHETHER YOU AGREE OR NOT & A DETAILED WHY:

Describe in your own words the key duties and responsibilities of a CMO in today’s job market – A CMO is responsible for planning, developing, doing market research, advertising, public relations, and managing the business market strategy. and public relations.

However, there has been so many changes in customer needs and behaviors, and how customers research and buy their products, that to succeed in this new environment, the CMO is playing a much more active and influential role. Today’s CMO determines where the focus should be based on the consumer attitudes and industry trends; where the priorities are, and where the team should devote their attention to.

For instance, Hyundai’s CMO made ‘car buying experience’ a priority, which changed the way people buy cars (Jenny Rooney, 1).

Car buyers now rely on web-based research first before going into a car dealer. Some don’t even go to the dealership, they purchase it online. Last week, I posted a video of Hyundai announcing a new model. The video alone is enough to help a customer make a buying decision.

Customers are no longer influenced by marketing campaigns. Philip Kotler put is better when he says that customers now use the f-factor: friends, families, Facebook fans, and Twitter followers (Kotler et all, 2). Customers now make decisions based on social opinions.

Select one successful CMO from a Fortune 500 company and explain what you found impressive about that person’s approach to the CMO role

The CMO that I found is most influential is Unilever’s Keith Weed. The new CMO now is influential in changing people’s attitudes. Keith Weed went even further by creating a campaign that breaks ethnic and cultural stereotypes. His boldness challenged marketers around the world to rethink the way a campaign portrays people, defying cultural norms (Unilever, 3)

In 2019, he launched the “pledge to unstereotype our advertising” (Unilever, 3).

Unilever’s advertising, marketing professionals and agency partners volunteered to provide DNA samples that would determine their origins. With the results (some shocking), they attended a behavior-changing workshop that explained how and when stereotypes are learned and how we can ‘unlearn’ them to increase creative and inclusive thinking. This training exercise helped to challenge their perception of themselves and of others. (Unilever, 3).

As expected, this resulted in not only positive cultural change but positive results. Latest data showed:

– 37% more branded impact, 28% uplift in purchase intent, and 35% increase in enjoyment of ads (Unilever, 3)

PART B – PLEASE RESPOND TO CLASSMATE DISCUSSION WHETHER YOU AGREE OR NOT & A DETAILED WHY:

The Chief Marketing Officer in a company is the most senior marketing professional on staff. He or she reports to the CEO or COO and their salary range is, generally speaking, anywhere from 80k to 315k per year depending on the size of the company, bonuses, profit sharing, and commissions. This title also carries a significant amount of responsibility and relies on successful ventures. The CMO is responsible for spear-heading marketing campaigns with his subordinate staff of data analysts, marketers, salespeople, and so on. The position may favor a person with a strong IT background like myself or someone with years in the marketing field. MBA’s are not required but preferred.

CMO’s are responsible for being the voice of the customer to the company. They interpret data collected from IoT (internet of things – a collection of automated devices that send data across the internet, rendering useful data such as market trends, hot items, and high traffic areas) and then take proactive measures to orchestrate a team of professionals to meet the customers’ needs based on that info. A good example would be as follows: Let’s say that during this COVID-19 pandemic, people were buying up masks which caused a shortage in the marketplace. A CMO might say to his staff, “Hey this is a great opportunity to pivot from selling t-shirts and get our logo out there on some real high-speed masks of our own.” He would then delegate various tasks to his respective team members in order to get a product on the market as quickly as possible.

However, looking ahead, the CMO position is waning. (1) Some companies are reshaping the job in response to those same technology forces, eliminating the CMO role or morphing it into jobs like the chief customer officer, chief experience officer, chief client officer or chief digital officer. In some companies, the CMO exists in conjunction with one of those other roles. To this point, Forrester Research Inc. in its 2018 CMO predictions said more organizations will replace their CMOs with chief growth officers (CGOs). “The rise of the CGO stands as a rebuke to ineffectual CMO,” Forrester states. “CEOs pressured to lead a force of change during slow growth will bypass numerous CMOs, looking to install executives with broader remits. For example, for a brand like Coca-Cola, this meant sunsetting the CMO position entirely in favor of a CGO, which represents a burgeoning trend CMOs can only abate by leading strategic growth initiatives.”

The CMO I chose to report on is Linda Boff, the CMO for GE – home of Jack Welch himself. Linda Boff (@lindaboff): GE’s chief marketing officer tweets about marketing, media, and — as you’d expect — technology. Boff also tweets and retweets stories with a focus on storytelling, leadership, and creativity.

According to her profile on GE’s website,

(2) “Boff brings a strategic mindset, global perspective, and expertise in communicating with our key stakeholders. Under Boff’s leadership, GE’s marketing campaigns and fresh approach to media technology and content have driven strong results in global brand growth and recruitment efforts. GE has been recognized as AdWeek’s hottest digital marketer and won a coveted Cannes Grand Prix Award in 2016.

Passionate about all things digital and the future of media and communications, Boff is recognized as one of today’s most influential executives. She was named 2017 AdWeek Grand Brand Genius. She is a 2016 Matrix Award winner, CDO Club’s 2016 US Chief Digital Officer of the Year and #5 on Business Insider’s 50 Most Innovative CMOs list, among other accolades. Boff is a past Chair of The Ad Council and a member of the ANA Executive Committee and Marketing 50”

To be completely candid here, I’m not on Twitter and I don’t know what any of her accomplishments really mean or how much they weigh in the grand scheme of things. I can, however, tell you that GE is no slouch of a company. If she made it that high and stayed for that long, she must be packing some serious gear in the brains department.