Only 36% of Fortune 500 Companies call their top marketing honcho "CMO". Is this a good thing?
Call us old-fashioned but we strongly believe that a company can't have competing heads. If you have competing heads, you have confusion.
Chief marketing officer. Chief brand officer. Chief operating and marketing officer. Chief commercial and strategy officer. None of these job titles are the same, yet various companies assign them to the same person: their top marketer.
We even had doubts, originally, about the title "Chief Marketing Officer" and the way it would innately compete with the CEO. Over the years, and through the evolution of the structure of the company, the need for a CMO has become clearer.
A CEO needs to free their time to look for investors or pacify Wall Street, deal with the board, look into new products, figure out which strategic direction to grow to... so having an experienced marketer take charge of marketing makes all the sense in the world.
The proliferation of titles, however, sheds light on one troubling aspect of corporate America: there is total confusion about what is marketing.
Advertising is not marketing... it's a discipline within marketing. Branding is not marketing, it's a discipline within marketing. Pricing is important... and part of marketing. So is distribution. And sales. And packaging. And... a myriad other things.
We think it's time to stop, breathe deeply, and restore logic to the marketing function
This article is too important to miss, so read the original in Adweek or download a PDF