When I look at the complexity of today’s world and the increasing demands organizations have for their CMOs, the question, “Has the CMO’s role turned into Mission Impossible?” comes to my mind. I find myself pondering this idea more and more since taking on a leadership role helping to drive marketing for the world’s fastest growing region: Asia.
While my background is in sales and business development, the world of marketing has fascinated me for many years. Contrary to the stereotypical view people have about marketing, the discipline ‘s primary task is not just to come up with one pretty campaign after another. In the world that I occupy as a marketing professional, I’m constantly faced with the reality of surmounting sales revenue targets and my pushing my team to help generate quality pipeline to support that number.
That is the main responsibility I have as a marketing leader. The rest of it is to ensure our marketing strategy is aligned to our customers’ needs and market trends, while also linking to our corporate direction and governance.
I need to also ensure that we keep the fun and fresh element in each campaign we design and deliver, while staying authentic to our audience—and, most importantly—delivering the insights to help them make better and more informed decisions.
Recently, I saw an interesting tweet about how data now rules the world: “Uber, Netflix, Aribnb and Facebook are not in the transportation, entertainment, travel or network business, they’re all in the data business.”
One of the biggest challenges facing all CMOs is data. You can’t escape from the reality of the growing importance of data, and today’s marketeers have no excuse for not being able to analyze data and use it as a daily tool in shaping their marketing strategy. The question is how and where to start? Unless you have access to the right technology, along with the right people and processes to support it, marketing in the 21st century is a mission impossible.
Recently we captured three marketing leaders speaking about their biggest challenge as a CMO, what’s yours?
https://youtube.com/watch?v=N1eXGhnCdoQ
