CMOs at the Crossroads: Driving Growth in an Era of Complexity
The CPG and retail industries are living a very exciting time, with renewed growth and value creation being two top-of-mind aspects. Coming out of a tough decade that saw slowing population growth, fragmented consumer attention, and economic uncertainty, companies are at a crossroads. To succeed in this new world, organizations must adopt a twofold agenda: find new pockets of growth through active portfolio management and enhance performance by building cutting-edge capabilities.
At the heart of all this transformation is the chief marketing officer, whose role has grown far beyond its traditional role in brand management and creative leadership. Today, CMOs are charged with driving growth and business impact while ensuring efficiency and effectiveness in their marketing investments. They need to create strong, purpose-driven brands, ensure exceptional consumer experiences, embrace emerging technologies like generative AI, and act as a strategic steward of organizational resources.
This article explores how CMOs can rise to meet these expanded responsibilities and outlines the steps required to build a future-ready marketing organization that is equipped for growth in an increasingly complex environment.
The Expanding Role of CMOs
In such an environment, the modern marketing leader faces a new rising bar of expectations, responsibilities, and era. Gone are the days when marketing could be done strictly within its classical function-requirements of brand strategy, creative, and consumer insights. The CMO today is expected to create immersive and connected experiences, become drivers of innovation, and expand beyond historically traditional functions for marketing: e-commerce, sales enablement, generative AI applications, and others.
In a recent survey of more than 100 C-level executives within the CPG and retail industries, marketing leaders were crystal clear: while building strong brands remains at the heart, CMO expectations include being called on to identify new opportunities, partnerships, and business models; connecting brand purpose to measurable business outcomes; enabling personalization at scale through advanced data and technology; and leading collaboration across diverse teams and functions.
Yet, even with this lofty ambition and clarity of mandate, significant gaps persist. Most CMOs say their organizations lag in key capabilities-especially in fully exploiting advanced technologies, real-time data, and agile operating models. These gaps create an opportunity to make marketing a force for growth.
Four Pillars of Marketing Excellence
To deliver on their expanding mandates, CMOs must create marketing excellence on four interrelated pillars. None of these pillars are new, but success in today’s context demands a new approach to strategy, performance, technology, and operations:
1. Marketing Strategy and Insight-Led Growth
Building distinctive, strong brands has always been at the heart of marketing. In the survey, 87% of CMOs say brand building is critically important; many leaders also rate their organizations as mature in this area. But the role of marketing strategy has expanded to include active scouting for growth opportunities, developing robust ecosystems of partners, and building experiential brand moments through entertainment, retail, and beyond.
Yet, despite this growing emphasis, maturity gaps persist. Only about a third of the CMOs responding to the survey think their organizations have the capabilities to excel in areas such as partnership development or immersive experiences.
2. Marketing Performance
Today’s CMO needs to think like an investor, leveraging data and analytics to dynamically deploy resources and balance the imperatives of near-term returns with longer-term transformational priorities. However, most organizations are failing to adopt this perspective.
Only 41% of CMOs surveyed rate their companies as mature in marketing performance measurement. Fewer than one in three reports effectively adjusting budgets dynamically or delivering personalized targeting at scale. Closing these gaps will require marketing leaders to adopt an ROI-driven mindset, backed by robust data infrastructure and advanced tools for measurement and optimization.
3. Tech-Enabled Marketing
In modern marketing, technology is indeed the enabler that empowers a brand to do everything, from creating experiences for its customers to executing campaigns with greater speed. And generative AI could change content creation and hasten decision-making.
This, however, is also where the biggest mismatch in maturity lies. For example, the same survey respondents reported:
- a 36-percentage-point gap in assessing automation opportunities;
- a 30-percentage-point gap in creating an AI strategy;
- a 25-percentage-point gap in developing generative AI capabilities.
Closing this gap will take investment in advanced technology and a cultural shift toward experimentation and agility.
4. A Fit-for-Purpose Marketing Operating Model
Too many organizations are held back by outdated operating models that create silos and slow decision-making. Only 27% of marketing leaders believe their operating models are mature enough to support their growth ambitions, according to the survey.
This futureproofing of marketing entails an operating model: agile, connected, collaborative, flexible, and scalable that enables teams. Therefore:
- Dismantle the silos, and there comes seamless collaboration across functions;
- Provide centres of excellence in scaling up new capabilities in AI;
- Clearly delineate the governance structures whereby teams can rapidly change direction.
Modern Marketing Organization
To thrive in this new world, CMOs must rewire their marketing organizations to unlock growth. That means defining a clear vision and aligning the entire organization around a “North Star” growth strategy. The leaders then need to take deliberate steps to:
- Connect Teams Through Organizational Structure: Tear down silos and free teams to work more cross-functionally toward a common purpose;
- Connect Ways of Working Through Governance and Culture: Establish a culture of entrepreneurialism and agility, underpinned by clarity regarding decision-making processes;
- Connect Expertise to Growth Drivers Through Capabilities: Invest in building end-to-end capabilities, from data-driven personalization to generative AI, while leveraging external partnerships where needed.
Organizations that successfully implement these changes can achieve faster decision-making, more personalized consumer experiences, and a stronger link between marketing activities and business outcomes.
A Blueprint for the Future
Thanks to this role of the CMO – fast-changing, yet with the proper focus and investment – marketing leaders can turn those challenges into opportunities. If CMOs align strategy, performance, technology, and operations in the right tune, they might just be redefining the role-not a brand builder anymore but an architect of sustainable growth in a very fluid landscape.
The next chapter of marketing leadership will demand bold action, visionary thinking, and an unrelenting focus on value creation. The time to act is now.
