As the CMO role continues to evolve, the halcyon days of the rock star CMO have seemingly come and gone. The job has become increasingly more difficult, with expectations of what marketers should be delivering for their businesses continuing to rise as marketing is being tied even closer to business results. At the same time, marketers are having to do more with less, with every dollar working harder — and some are even expected to exceed these higher expectations of the job despite being fractional CMOs.
The tumult of the CMO role in recent years has certainly become more intense. Last week’s shake-up at Starbucks, with the company retiring the global CMO role altogether, could be seen as another chip against the role. Walgreens, Etsy and UPS have also eliminated the role. With that said though, McDonald’s eliminated its global CMO role and then brought it back not even a year later in 2020, and Coca-Cola went through a similar process in 2019 — although it took the company closer to two years.
“I don’t think this is necessarily a canary in the coal mine for CMO [role] — I think it illustrates that the marketing function needs to appropriately fit within the structure and the strategy of the business,” said Jay Pattisall, vp and principal agency analyst at Forrester. “For every doom and gloom story, there is an example of a thriving marketing practice or a thriving and growing marketer — McDonald’s and Coca-Cola represent that. They are organizations that brought back the chief marketing function as a means to help the company to grow.”
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