Fortune favours our brave chief marketing officers

The role of the CMO is in the throes of massive change, as businesses increasingly task their marketing teams with hard-to-find growth. Fortune favours the brave.

Lee Leggett is chief executive of CHEP Network and board member of Clemenger Group.

You could be forgiven for thinking life might be tough for chief marketing officers in Australia and New Zealand right now.

But at a time of collective belt-tightening, the bravest CMOs we work with aren’t taking the bait of shortsighted tactics. Quite the opposite.

A couple of months ago, the Australian Association of National Advertisers’ chief executive Josh Faulks also argued in these pages that “the death of the CMO is grossly exaggerated”. I couldn’t agree more.

Right now, I am motivated by a new breed of CMOs who are using this time of change to hold the line on visionary strategies. Who are doubling down on the core tenets of marketing and embracing more integrated approaches to brand strategy and customer experience.

Michael Hill Jeweller, with highly regarded chief marketing officer Jo Feeney at the helm of its brand, is the epitome of a business that has adopted this approach. To connect with a younger, higher-value customer, Michael Hill Jeweller turned to the origins of its brand, reintroducing itself to a new generation, reinventing itself as a premium retailer – in the middle of an economic downturn. This formed part of the brand’s brief to our agency, and was a thrilling creative and commercial challenge from day one.

Every facet of its refreshed identity has been considered to connect to a new cohort of customers. Today, its retail business is flourishing, with 270 stores across three countries.

When many lead marketers are easily spooked by economic swings and roundabouts, it takes a brave CMO to invest in a longer-term strategy that requires knowing what foundations should be ruthlessly protected, and what should be radically reinvented.

In last year’s CMO survey of 3000-plus marketing leaders in the US, “demonstrating the impact of marketing actions on financial outcomes” continues to be the top challenge for marketing leaders. Between 2019 and 2023, “communicating the role of the brand in business decisions” increased from 37 per cent to 45 per cent.

However, at the same time, the proportion of marketing leaders who believed it was important to “infuse the customer’s point of view in business decisions” decreased from 40 per cent to 28 per cent. This is a worrying trend that threatens to widen the gap between a brand and their customer, which will only be overcome by the bravery of our new breed of CMOs.

The brave CMO is now venturing confidently into the world of customer experience, to ensure positive brand perceptions and loyalty are fostered at every touchpoint in the customer journey.

They’re driven by data, a wealth of new technologies and a razor-sharp understanding of customer behaviours and motivations as a driver for growth and tangible commercial value. They’re “winning the boardroom” by aligning business functions towards a brand purpose, and motivating fellow leaders to place the customer’s voice at the heart of all decision-making.

Most importantly, they’re using data to bust misconceptions, unearth knowledge and build influence by knowing more about their business, market and customer than anyone else.

This is why the new breed of CMO is so important to business. To be brave, in all the right ways. And to not lose sight of the customer, every step of the way.

Lee Leggett is chief executive of CHEP Network and board member of Clemenger Group.