I was fortunate to attend yet another Forbes exclusive CMO Summit in sunny Palm Beach Florida at the Breakers Resort. Last year in 2009, we heard from CMOs that they had plans to increase their spending in social media –and they were preparing for growth, and I’m here to discuss the trends heard direct from the mouths of CMOs at this private, high quality event. Here are the recurring trends I heard from this group of top CMOs in this private event.
Macro Trend: CMOs to plan for Growth and Prepare Investments
We kicked off the event from a macro viewpoint from Steve Forbes himself (I was pleased to enjoy a dinner with him, and learn from his global insights), noting how growth has started to occur, and how Chief Marketing Officers will shift away from planning to accelerating growth.
Yet are Struggling with a Myriad of Challenges
CMOs aren’t in the clear yet, they are plagued with a myriad of challenges such as loss of reputation, constant struggle deploying and measuring social media. A variety of jockeying still occurs within the CSuite as the CMO depends –yet has to prove efforts to CFO, and technology platforms from the CIO. Above all we heard that brands now must “stand for something” beyond just revenue numbers –positioning to the core of what a brand stands for must be revisited.
The Consumer Continues to Allude Marketers
The room certainly felt how the customers has changed, they use different communication channels, and want different forms of media. We heard that marketers are engaging customers with short form media and content referred to as “Snackable”. As consumers have shifted their habits to talking to each other using social tools, brands must be ready to tackle the tough conversations and be sure they have a “thick skin”.
Social Media, the Unanswered Medium
We heard from a variety of CMOs that have had successful –and unsuccessful — endevours with social media that they are beyond whether or not it matters, it was a recurring theme throughout the event. Yet what challenges CMOs with social channels is integrating it with other efforts like the TV spot, traditional advertising and the corporate website. CMOs are seeking how social media efforts can now be aggregated into the overall marketing dashboard –not a one off.
CMOs Investment in Innovation Pays off During Recession
Marketers recognize that while they’re going to anticipate growth, innovation was required to develop new techniques and harness the communication of others. In particular, As companies must act more human like, we heard that some marketers were enabling the rank and file employee (and alumni) to tell the story for them –beyond corporate communications and brand advertising.
Aspirational: Some CMOs yearn for the CEO role.
Despite CMO tenure lenthgting to 34.7 months from a mere 25 months, we heard that some CMOs seek to transcend their go to market role. We heard from a closing panel that some CMOs had a strong penchant to assume the Chief Executive role within a corporation and were given advice to sit on aviary boards of non-profits, marketing boards, then board of directors of other companies, as a pragmatic path to the CEO office.
These high level trends should be taken into consideration by the Corporate Social Strategist, as they start to define their program for the 2011 trends for social business.
It is nice to hear that “CMOs are seeking how social media efforts can now be aggregated into the overall marketing dashboard “not a one off.” Lots of conversations I have had recently with strategists’ have pointed the other direction it seems,most certainly in B2B. The full understanding and organized adoption within larger corporations still seems really low, at at a minimum are met with much resistance. It also seems the measuring part if by far the biggest sticking point. No longer can marketing execs measure using the same’ol ROI calculations, and streamlined tables.
A lot of CEO’s come from a value/revenue creation focused background (sales) or a value measurement background (finance). To ascend to CEO status do you think that the CMO’s social media marketing efforts need to also be focused on breaking down silos and socializing the rest of the organization? Many can be very siloed in their approach.
These CMOs were likely more sophisticated than the average, Forbes attracts that. They each had their own social media case study they were telling.
apologize if I missed it, but were those case studies or presentations posted for others to see/read? Would be nice to see a list of the CMOs also who presented as it would be helpful when doing research on social media examples. Thanks as always Jeremiah.
Jeremiah-sounds like the challenges and opportunities as presented in “Open Leadership” are very real. You can’t hire a grad or send a veteran someplace to get this “education”. The process transcends culture to product development and all points in between as pointed out by @shanegibson
Great info as always.
Steve this was a “Soft NDA” so all the presos and discussions were not to be discussed outside of the room. The lineup was impressive.
Agreed, there’s a cultural shift happening as a result of these technologies.