The purpose of a CMO is not purpose.
For many years there’s been a lot of talk about the demise of CMOs. Their ever shortening tenures. Their diminished authority in the C-suite. Hell, do organizations even need them? Running concurrent with this has been the idea of brand purpose within marketing. Back in Oct. 2023 I wrote about ‘The purpose of purpose?’ and the debate continues to rage. Most recently in Fast Company with Sophie Ozoux’s article – ‘CMOs are in trouble. Should anyone care?’
The article covers some great ground. Such as the sobering fact for head-in-the-sand self important marketers that people wouldn’t care if 74% of brands disappeared altogether. Or, the fact that companies have a short-sighted focus on short-term gains rather than long-term sustainable growth – Les Binet & Peter Field‘s ‘The short and the long of it.’ But what was central to the article was the devaluing of CMOs also means a weakening of companies’ ability to effect meaningful social change – purpose.
Rather than these things running parallel to one-another I’d proffer they’re inextricably linked. Ironically for a profession that’s rooted in supposedly knowing the subtle and idiosyncratic differences between its target customers and finding strategies accordingly, there’s been an overwhelming sense of groupthink and a heard marketing mentality. Purpose has been overplayed by many marketers keen to look cool and seeing purpose as the one-size-fits all universal cure for all ills. You might say they’ve drunk a little too much from the (100% recycled) bottle of purpose Kool-Aid.
Companies have over-leveraged purpose at the expense of brand growth. Purpose is not a panacea that every brand must adopt or fail. And, even when successfully adopted and implemented, brand purpose might not deliver any corporate growth. In fact, it might even hinder it. As Unilever‘s incoming CEO Hein Schumacher said in Oct, 2023, ‘force fitting’ purpose to its brands was done at the expense of growth.
At the end of the day growth is the real purpose of the CMO. So when you have CEOs seeing the folly and distraction of purpose is it any wonder CMOs are in trouble?