Who Do You Think You Are? We Need To Solve The Identity Crisis In C-Level Marketing

Happy Friday, Marketing Friends!

We have part one of a new ongoing series concentrating on the CMO role and the CMO title. We know it’s always a controversial topic...

This week: Harry (as only Harry can) dives deep into the CMO role, why we are seeing a continued evolution of the CMO role and title, and why the packaging of the CMO role, under CCO, CRO and CGO is causing so much unrest without pulling any punches.

In the coming weeks, Harry and I are going to be breaking down: how it’s come to this, why some people embrace the title change and others just cannot, why it’s going to continue to evolve, while looking at what the future will look like.

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Whether we want to admit it or not, most of us would quite like to be ennobled. Considering my lack of world-improving behaviours over the years, it seems unlikely I’ll be asked to kneel before King Charles any time soon, so the closest I’ll get is my BA Clubcard from the early 2000’s. The application form allowed me to knight myself ‘Sir Harry of Lang’, which I thought would give me a shot at free upgrades. 

I was mistaken.

Historically, to earn an knighthood you had to be:-
A/ An enemy defeating military badass
B/ A life or planet saving genius
C/ A traditionalist (AKA inherit it)

The first Duke of Wellington, Arthur Wellesley, received numerous knighthoods throughout his career, many before he won his Magnum Opus, the battle of Waterloo. Then there’s Dr. Alexander Fleming, who discovered penicillin. Well, he pretty much saved half of humanity, so no arguments there. The problem is nowadays, you just need to be an inoffensive comedian with a clean rap sheet or the lovechild of a haphazard PM to qualify, which just isn’t the same, is it?

It’s this kind of title devaluation that’s migrated into the marketing industry in recent years, culminating in the Harvester Buffet of job descriptions at the top of the tree. Senior executives in our line of work are arguably self-immolating as a result, losing influence and meaning at a time in which they really should be sat in a Holy Trinity alongside CEO Jesus and the Holy Spirit CFO.

Flawed Title & Expectation?

‘Chief Marketing Officer’ used to work fine on its own. Top of the marketing tree, represents the customer, responsible for any and all things marketing related. So far, so sensible. She’s one up from a Marketing Director or VP because she sits in the C-suite, and thus has a voice at the table for strategic company-wide decisions.

But what’s this? Aah - greed, my Biblical friend. Thirsty marketers wanted to stretch their sphere of influence on both sides of the Atlantic, so they did what they do best, and got creative with words.

‘But what about sales and revenue?’ moaned the Chief Revenue Officer?

“Don’t forget our ownership of product!” whinged the Chief Growth Officer.

“…or everything people feel when they touch our brands” mewed the Chief Experience Officer.

“FFS, I AM EVERYTHING ABOUT THE CUSTOMER!” screeched the Chief Customer Officer.

And the CMO? Old news, I’m afraid. Decried as a brand-centric relic of a bygone era, despite having performance well and truly aligned with brand for time immemorial - they were put out to pasture, an analogue record in a Spotify world.

“Who’s responsible for increasing brand awareness?” simpered the CEO, nervously.

“Who cares?” replied the VCs, Private Equity suit monkeys and various B2B knowledge leaders blessed with more followers than brain cells.

Kicking The (LinkedIn) Hornets Nest

Earlier this week I posted a missive on LinkedIn on this very subject to help me understand what was going on and which direction I should be directing myself in if I wanted to avoid becoming obsolete. In it, I asked a simple question:-

“Why has the role of the CMO diminished in credibility and perceived value whilst Chief Revenue / Growth Officers have become the new Golden Child of our discipline”? 

Is it just CEO/ CFO/ Board myopia? Near termism? Desperate panic in the race for ROI? Post-COVID profit curve obsession? SaaS - Who Dares Wins? A universal misunderstanding about How Brands Grow? (Chapeau to Byron Sharp)

Revenue focused GTM marketing is increasingly replacing the traditional CMO role as companies prioritise RevGen and ROI, especially in the B2B space. This shift has put an inevitable onus on short-term results over long term brand building.

People with more brains than I have explained to me how this new state of affairs has come about, and much of the movement's noise seems to come from B2B and SaaS marketing circles. There’s also some suggestion that Bob Lauterborn’s introduction of pricing into the ‘4 C’s’  of consumer, cost, convenience, and communication to replace the traditional ‘4 P’s’ might have been a warning of a more revenue focused future to come.

It got me wondering - how have these trends gained traction when they’re so bloody confusing? Why are there six + names for the person who runs the marketing org in any given business? Why do we hoard novel acronyms with the same addicted lunacy that Musk collects baby mommas?

“…the clarity of what marketing is and isn’t got buried under layers of title inflation, acronym gymnastics, and performative innovation”.

Sarah Stahl, Digital Growth Strategist

At least some of it is a constant, high volume drip of persuasion on platforms like LinkedIn and X. Think about it - how much interesting content do you read from established CMO's with a brand / performance/ leadership remit as opposed to those GTM leaders and SaaS-sayers who are laser focussed on sales and revenue?

Is B2B To Blame?

I have a theory.

Being near-term revenue hunters, B2B and in turn SaaS marketers look at sales as the top priority (rightfully). They make a lot of noise when sharing function insights and the latest tactic / theorem/ framework in an effort to make noise and fluff the funnel. Meanwhile, any credible B2C CMOs with new, effective tactics would keep them to themselves, reluctant to share what actually works with their competitors. They don't need the PR, the noise nor the profile. Sales and revenue focused marketers do.

It’s not the fault of the CEO’s, nor CFO’s, VC’s or Private Equity vampires.  In my humble opinion we – the marketers - are to blame. We forgot the core tenet of our discipline:- 'simple is always better'. If we find this stuff confusing, how the hell can we pretend C-suite peers are gonna get it? CFOs look after finance, CPOs look after people and product respectively, and yet here we are - CMO, CGO, CRO, CCO… it’s a self-fulfilling shambles that devalues the real contribution we’re capable of making.

Digital & Brand Consultant David Sayce agrees, suggesting

“…the title inflation isn’t helping anyone, it’s just muddying the waters and making marketing seem more like smoke and mirrors than strategy”.

I even saw a highly influential thought leader suggesting the entirely superfluous 'Chief Market Officer' as yet another crouton in this soup of crapidity. Jesus wept…

Evolution Vs Revolution

Why are we pushing ourselves into these new lateral moves? One reason is simple ambition. There are famously few marketers who have successfully migrated to the CEO position, so expanding perceived influence sideways instead was, I s’pose, inevitable. Supporting other functions, I get. Leading on product marketing I get. But land grabbing all revenue, sales, customer service and product responsibility on top of marketing? For a multi-geo, multi-product business? Nobody is doing that job well. 

Businesses are all unique, with different customer cohorts who have changeable needs. These entities exist in various life stages, with bespoke strategies required for a cocktail of geos. ‘Growth’ in Europe means something very different to ‘Growth’ in the U.S. and whilst B2B and B2C may look like siblings, they have different parents and live totally contrasting lives.

This taxonomic ranking is akin to the animal kingdom:- if B2C is human, then B2B is fish. Start-ups are a different species to SMEs, which in turn exist as a separate genus to global corporations. SaaS is another creature entirely, having written its own marketing rulebook, littered with the corpses of grandstanding formulas and sloganized methodology, each of which was designed by those with a vested interest in selling the next big thing, motivated by sales and  powered by a fear of being left behind.

It’s a frickin’ zoo - and all the zookeepers are stuck in a cage.

The Bigger Picture

As my co-curator on this newsletter, Danny Denhard suggests, many variables come into play to define the senior marketer’s title, and CEOs do hold at least some responsibility for the nominative shambles:-

“First,  there’s the stage of the company (start-up, scale-up vs listed business). Second, the preference of the founder and board for the title, then third, the internal narrative the CEO wants to tell with the most senior marketing role.
Often, when replacing a CMO they will rework it into CRO or CGO role to refresh how its perceived or the refocus it wants to push”.

Wouldn't it be lovely if we could agree on a pragmatic baseline for which job title is responsible for what responsibilities and outcomes? Right now it's like the marketing acronym wars of the early 2000's all over again (you can read the 15 page glossary in my book to tell you how that turned out...)

For now, Danny and I have crafted a simple matrix to get the debate ball rolling – please get in touch with your thoughts so we can eventually crowdsource a version of this that CEOs, CFOs, COO’s, Boards, VC’s and yes, us marketers, can lean on when the rapture comes.  

We should be capable of writing our own future, but to do that we must define who we are, what we do and what we’re called a little more pragmatically.

You want my Tuppence worth? There’s no need for more than two:-

• CMO – the most senior marketer in the business, represents the customer and responsible for all marketing strategy and channels

• CGO – as above, but supersedes a CMO as they’re also responsible for sales, product and any customer comms channels - AKA ‘The Everything Genome’

Before you @ me into obscurity, this isn’t the hill I’ll die on. Hell, I wouldn’t even take a nap on it, but ANYTHING’s better than suffering the status quo. 

We need to introduce simplicity, pragmatism, creativity and sense into our top level job titles and definitions - like we do with our teams every day in our actual jobs.

» Harry Lang is a CMO, Managing Director of marketing consultancy Brand Architects and author of the 5 Star rated marketing guidebook ‘Brands, Bandwagons & Bullshit,’ available on Amazon. Connect with Harry on LinkedIn or email him at [email protected].

Thanks and have a great weekend, and we will land in your inbox next week.

Danny Denhard & Harry Lang — Marketing Unfiltered - Newsletter, WhatsApp channel

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