Dangerous Games….Chief Marketing Office Registers Most Rapid Turnover
December 10, 2007 – 12:36 pm
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Loading ...According to a recent Business Week report, the position of Chief Marketing Officer boasts one of the fastest turnover rates of the C-level positions. Although top level management roles at companies often register rapid turnover (CEOs usually make it to 44 months while CFOs and CIOs last an average 39 and 36 months respectively) all three are substantially longer than the average tenure of the CMO: 26 months.
What is it about this position that makes it so difficult to maintain?
For one thing, Marketing is an art. It requires creativity, flexibility, instinct, and the ability to understand people enough to appeal to them on a very specific level. Like all great arts, marketing plays on desire, prompting emotional responses, and driving inspiration. The problem is that, because marketing is driven by emotions as much as by mathematical calculations, it is not always predictable and, sometimes, defies expectations either for good or ill. When marketing succeeds, the CMO rakes in rewards; but if a marketing campaign doesn’t return immediate results or, even worse, flounders, the CMO gets stuck holding the bag.
The other issue is that other C-level executives, who’s success or failure is governed by the the books, have a hard time sympathizing with complex measures of success or failure that are standard in marketing. Marketers often have to answer for the ROI on campaigns that haven’t been finished yet, long-term initiatives that have barely started, and the immediate negative impact of a campaign with long-term benefits.
This isn’t to say that marketers, and the CMO, shouldn’t answer for their campaigns. In fact, Blueliner has built its business model on strategic marketing with an eye towards profitable, measurable results. What it does say is that marketing is hard to explain to those who see business as numbers and profit, rather than a complex combination of corporate structure, products/services, and people.
A successful business strategy must appreciate the long-term pay-off of marketing strategies, even if immediate results seem negative. It must also plan for successful campaigns, while simultaneously maintaining a back-up plan in case unpredictable events or consumer reactions the campaign to go sour. And, ultimately, a company must be able to extend flexibility to its CMO, and the marketing department he or she helms.
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