Marketers have talked for years about how emerging technology allows them to know their customers better. Olson President Margaret Murphy explains why, in 2015, that’s become a CMO’s most important job.

1. When you think about the growing
list of CMO responsibilities, a lot
comes to mind.
Managing their company’s brand,
collaborating more closely with the
CIO, juggling a long list of external
relationships with agencies and
other partners and, of course,
running ever-more-complex
internal teams. What was always
a big job keeps getting bigger.
But I’d argue that the most
important job facing CMOs right
now isn’t listed above. Their most
important job is understanding and
connecting with their customers
and then organizing their business
to support it.
As a recent report from Forrester’s
CMO practice lead, Sheryl
Pattek, put it: “The pressures on
organizations to become customer-
centric have never been greater,
creating an unprecedented need to
understand customers much better
than ever before.”
I couldn’t agree more. Never
before has there been a greater
opportunity for marketing leaders
and their brands to develop
platforms that focus on their
customers’ needs and desires.
And, thanks to technology, the
raw data on customer behavior
and preferences is richer than
ever before.
But this also presents a new
challenge: Are all these touchpoints
truly in sync? Does the advertising
being created reflect the learnings
coming from CRM or PR? Do the
agencies charged with steering
these often disparate functions
understand how they relate to the
pieces they aren’t running? Too
often, the answer is no. And 2015
will probably be the year that gets
exposed and exploited more than
ever before.
In 2015, CMOs must build a
deep understanding of these
consumers to build innovative and
differentiating platforms. They must
focus intently on this issue, and
surround themselves with partners
(internally and externally) that can
help them achieve this goal.
Successful CMOs in 2015 will
need to point their organizations
towards a sharper, well informed
focus on what will engage and
motivate consumers. This sort of
thing used to be a nice bonus, but
now it’s a customer expectation,
and failing to meet it has negative
consequences.
Forrester’s Pattek argues that the
consequences of this emerging
dynamic will be that “CMOs will
push agencies to serve them more
strategically.” But it goes without
saying that they’re most likely to
value the partners that do this
without being pushed at all.
We’ve heard a lot of noise from
agencies in recent years regarding
their bolstered data, insights
and analytics capabilities, but
the rhetoric about moving into
consulting-firm territory has
outpaced the actual progress. The
time to show clients how those can
help them do their most important
job has arrived.
Margaret Murphy is
President of Olson.
2015:
The year of the
CONSUMER CMO™
by Margaret Murphy