I had to laugh the other day when, driving in my car, I brought up Siri on my iPhone to take a reminder.
Me: “Siri, remind me tomorrow to write a blog post on the IBM CMO report.”
Siri: “Write a blog post on the IBM CM Oh report.”
*chuckle*
Unwittingly clever. Well played, Siri. I tried again.
Me: “Remind me tomorrow to do a blog post on CMOs and the IBM report.”
Siri: “Do a blog post on CM hosed and the IBM report.”
Actually, that isn’t far off. Have you read the 2011 IBM CMO study? As I compared the report’s findings to my own experience working with CMOs, I found a grand irony, a really tough situation for CMOs, and a misread of CMOs’ level of self-awareness.
The Grand Irony
Like IBM, we at Corporate Executive Board also surveyed marketing leaders about data and analytics last month. We found that Big Data is indeed the top challenge facing CMOs .
But wouldn’t it be ironic if the mania around customer intelligence, data and analytics—all in the name of being customer-centric—actually took marketers further away from gaining a deeper understanding of their customers? (See my recent blog post that outlines other dangers associated with Big Data hype).
Happily, the authors of the IBM study manage to catch this, but just barely. Early on in the report, the authors shake a finger at marketers for not tapping into blogs, consumer reviews and real-time conversations more often. IBM asserts that these are fertile sources of potential customer insight.
And they are…relatively speaking.
But when it comes to truly understanding consumer context, even the best tools for unstructured data are like looking through a glass, darkly. There’s no contest between data mining and in-person, direct observation for gaining a true understanding of consumer context.
Here’s where the irony comes in. There’s an underlying danger that many marketers will be led astray by bright, shiny data. They will unwittingly let data crunching overshadow actual customer observation. If you imagine marketers’ insight generation as a balanced investment portfolio, all the talk of Big Data creates a danger of underweighting a critical insight category: direct consumer observation.
To the authors’ credit, the IBM report does suggest that “all the data in the world cannot replace the personal experience of walking in your customers’ shoes.” CMO’s would do well to ingrain a discipline for direct consumer observation in their respective organizations before the data flood hits their marketing teams.
I Think We Have a Situation Here…
The IBM study points to a mismatch in role and expectations of CMOs. This is where Siri got the “CM Hosed” right.
Among the top metrics the marketing function will be measured against are some very broad ones, including customer experience, overall sales and the ever elusive marketing ROI. On the flip side, the majority of CMOs have a remit that stops short of owning the classical 4P marketing levers. More than 80 percent are responsible for Promotion (new title: CproMO, pronounced “see-pro-mo”). Somewhere between 30 and 50 percent own a combination of Product, Place and Price levers. For such broad metrics on which CMO success will be measured, this narrow purview is tough. The structure is a little like telling the Secretary of Commerce that he’s on the hook for solving the nation’s debt crisis.
Luckily, here at CEB, we’re picking up a sense of a broadening CMO mandate. We recently asked marketing leaders about 15 trends affecting the marketing function. About 1 in 5 CMOs said their mandate has already shifted from traditional brand building and communications to end-to-end customer experience management and business innovation. Another 3 in 5 expect the shift to happen over the next few years. (In one my next posts, I’ll write about other key findings from our survey)
The Misread of CMO Self-Awareness
IBM asked CMOs which capabilities they think they’ll need to be personally successful in the future. The top three: leadership abilities, voice-of-customer insights and creative thinking. The bottom three: tech savvy, social media expertise and finance skills.
The study authors expressed surprise and a bit of dismay at these rankings. They argue that most CMOs will need to boost their own digital, tech and financial proficiency. Could this be a colossal blind spot for CMOs?
I don’t think so. First, like other C-suite executives, CMOs are stretched incredibly thin. They of course realize they need to be more tech savvy on the margins, but with precious little discretionary time, I’d say they’ve got it about right. Today’s CMOs need leadership skills foremost, followed by killer insights and creativity in order to succeed in today’s environment.
Second, the necessary critical skills are themselves evolving very quickly. I’d argue there is greater scope of value creation for CMOs who can apply creativity to solve today’s business problems, or to navigate the message and media alternatives across an increasing number of touchpoints (including social and mobile), than for CMOs who go especially deep on social media expertise.
When I asked Siri how self-aware Chief Marketing Officers are, she said she didn’t understand. I then asked Siri if she is self-aware. She gave me the creepy “No comment, Patrick.”
