There’s a heated debate concerning the apparently quick shelf-life and dwindling illustration of chief advertising and marketing officers. The prevailing knowledge is that advertising and marketing management positions are shrinking in scope and lack endurance. But all this angst and ennui ignores a basic fact: CMOs have very completely different experiences relying on the place they work, their firm’s enterprise mannequin, and their gender.
To higher perceive CMO illustration and tenure, Forrester analyzed the profiles of CMOs (each who carry that title or have been in any other case the senior most advertising and marketing government) throughout the Fortune 500. We discovered that 63% of Fortune 500 corporations had a senior advertising and marketing government that reported to the CEO and had accountability for all of selling; 55% had the CMO title; the typical tenure was 4.2 years; and 53% are ladies. However these averages disguise large variations and deform arguments concerning the vitality of the CMO occupation.
CMO illustration varies considerably by trade and enterprise mannequin
Don’t be fooled by the averages: CMOs are quite common within the monetary companies and utilities/telecommunications industries, however they’re a uncommon exception in different sectors like vitality and mining. We noticed a whopping 70% variance in CMO illustration throughout the sectors we tracked.
Enterprise mannequin additionally has a serious influence on the prevalence of CMOs: Over three-quarters of B2C-focused corporations have a CMO, in contrast with lower than half of B2B-focused corporations, and B2B2C-focused corporations fall in between at round two-thirds having a CMO.
The gender hole is actual relating to CMO tenure
Abstract statistics additionally fail to precisely seize the fortunes of Fortune 500 CMOs, particularly their tenure: We noticed a 75% variance in common CMO tenure throughout the industries we tracked. We noticed related disparities by enterprise mannequin too: B2B CMOs have the bottom common tenure and B2B2C CMOs the longest.
Ladies fare worse off than males — Feminine CMOs have a markedly decrease tenure than their male counterparts, regardless of holding nearly all of CMO positions within the Fortune 500 total.
What do you have to take away from our evaluation? Relating to understanding the skilled lives of CMOs, the satan is within the particulars. The favored gloom-and-doom narrative is way too simplistic and overstated. CMOs in monetary companies dwell in a distinct work world than their friends in vitality and mining, and ladies have very completely different experiences than males. We must always concentrate on these disparities and what’s behind them, somewhat than obsessing about meaningless international averages.