Balancing clicks and enduring brand love

Today’s CMO needs to master the fine art of balancing clicks with enduring brand love.

With C-suite executives becoming increasingly critical of marketing spend and demanding more evidence of return, the CMO’s role has significantly shifted from just advertising, brand management and market research.

The evolved CMO is a company’s most valuable asset, as the broadening of responsibilities means they drive business strategy in a customer centric and data rich manner.

CMOs not only cover the traditional marketing outputs, but also:

Own the customer and their experience which encompasses the end to end customer journey and the measurement thereof
Leverage data to personalise marketing efforts through insights
Collaborate with the C-suite as a strategic partner, aligning marketing goals to deliver impact and growth
Embrace technology to deliver bespoke marketing solutions
Develop and mentor world-class, well-rounded marketers internally and through engagement with industry associations

The modern CEO expects their agencies to be strategic partners, capable of driving true brand growth, delivering impactful campaigns and providing valuable insights and expertise in a rapid and evolving marketing landscape.

The expectations I have of my agency partners includes:

Collaboration at business partner level as we should be taking risks together, and winning and learning together
Driving creative, media and communications strategy that address business needs and the delivery of work that can be measured against objectives
Execution and on time delivering is key. Many agencies are not keeping up with the speed required in an ‘always-on’ environment
Data must lead all strategy and execution
Introduction and use of innovation and technology, without losing relevance and customer connection
Development of effective media plans, strong negotiation skills and the optimisation of spend to maximise returns
The bravery to push boundaries with great ideas and innovative work