GfK conducted a global study that involved 633 Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) and senior decision-makers in marketing with an objective to analyse their views on the key factors that contribute to successful marketing within their own companies. The findings revealed that only seven pc of marketing leaders feel equipped to achieve success.
The survey responses form the basis for GfK’s new ”CMO Outlook Index”, which shows that most senior marketing leaders feel there is significant potential for improvement in their organisation.
The three central pillars of marketing effectiveness are: “Impact” (capability of team and demonstration of ROI), “Alignment” (leveraging the brand’s commercial value and purpose), and “Investment” (C-suite commitment to brand and marketing investment).
While 40 pc of the senior marketers say they have all necessary resources in at least one of the areas, only seven pc say they feel optimally equipped across all three of the pillars.
A quarter of all marketers agree that their company has a clearly defined mission and purpose beyond commercial goals, and also that the brand contributes to the company’s commercial success. In companies where the marketing leader feels they have a strong brand purpose, marketing typically has more influence.
Regarding investment, 19 pc of leaders feel optimally positioned for both long-term brand building and short-term sales growth. Among them, 60 pc allocate a significant portion of their marketing budget to long-term brand building.
Additionally, 20 pc of decision-makers feel ideally positioned in terms of impact, with confidence in their team’s skills, understanding of effective marketing channels, and data analysis capabilities. These leaders exhibit mature capabilities in customer segmentation, campaign optimization, and extracting insights from data.
“It is relatively common for CMOs to have optimized either their marketing team’s ability or their company’s brand alignment or its brand investment. The huge drop-off comes when we look at who feels optimally positioned across all three areas. The findings from our CMO Outlook Index help marketing leaders to understand how their peers perceive marketing and where growth is needed,” said, Gonzalo Garcia Villanueva, Chief Marketing Officer at GfK.
The overall CMO Outlook Index, which considers all three pillars, currently stands at 21. When examining company sizes, marketers in companies with higher annual revenues feel better positioned in terms of the success factors for effective marketing. Industries such as Utilities, Telecommunications, and Logistics have lower CMO Outlook Index scores, while Technology and Durables, as well as Financial and Professional Services, have the highest scores.
The CMO Outlook Index will be tracked continuously, with the full report providing an even deeper analysis and recommendations being released in September.
