How to Keep the CMO From Becoming an Endangered Species

Whereas the chief advertising officer (CMO) submit isn’t about to vanish tomorrow, it’s unattainable to disregard the mounting proof of its regular erosion.As ADWEEK reported in August, the common CMO tenure slipped from 4.1 years in 2024 to three.9 years in 2025. Final yr, 63% of Fortune 500 firms had CMOs—however in 2025, that determine had dropped by 5%.It will get worse. A McKinsey paper launched in June famous that “CFOs typically view advertising as a price middle fairly than an funding.” And 2025 information gathered by advertising agency Boathouse reveals that 14% of CEOs admit to having thought of eliminating the CMO’s place.Scary? Very a lot so. However regardless of the numbers, CMOs themselves are usually not as fatalistic about their futures.Throughout a roundtable dialogue at ADWEEK Home: Promoting HQ on Thursday, ADWEEK chief model and neighborhood officer Jenny Rooney invited three main CMOs to problem the notion that entrepreneurs are an endangered species within the C-suite—and help that counter-narrative with the explanation why CMOs nonetheless matter.Alison Hiatt of Vera Bradley, Uzma Rawn Dowler of Main League Baseball, and Christie Sclater of Clinique advised methods CMOs can convey their relevance to CEOs underneath strain to chop prices and more and more seeking to AI as a panacea. Listed here are just a few of them.Be greater than a marketerToday, a CMO’s job tasks stretch far past the normal boundaries of promoting and promotion, however CFOs and CEOs typically don’t absolutely recognize that. So it falls to the chief marketer not simply to advocate for what they do, but in addition to translate it.“The CMO position, in my thoughts, is sort of a get-shit-done officer,” Dowler stated. “The ‘C’ and the ‘O’ are there, after which within the center you must simply put no matter it is advisable put in there, as a result of our roles are usually not simply advertising.”Market to your prospects, not yourselfResults-obsessed and more and more skeptical chief executives could also be extra prone to query the pondering behind, or validity of, an promoting marketing campaign or advertising technique. It’s most likely a good suggestion to remind different company chiefs that they don’t must get the thought.“If they’ve [skeptical] opinions about sure issues, it’s okay—you must remind them, ‘Hey, this really isn’t meant for you,’” Dowler stated. “However we’ve got all this information and analysis to point out that it’ll resonate for the people who it’s meant for.”Get forward of AIAs generative AI will get extra superior, the C-suite shall be much more prone to query roles just like the CMO and artistic director, and even the advertising division general. Rightly or not, it is going to fall to the CMO to clarify AI’s place, and advertising’s place above it.“AI is a device, not a technique,” stated Hiatt, who added that CEOs ought to keep in mind that CMOs aren’t promoting a intelligent thought, they’re delivering what a model wants most—shoppers. “On the finish of the day, with advertising, you’re shopping for a buyer,” she stated. “We’re not speaking about that sufficient.”Clarify why management is criticalSclater identified that whereas AI might be able to generate content material, that’s no alternative for a advertising chief that may function coach, interlocutor, choice maker, and innovator.“Within the absence of a CMO, we’re simply operating a relay race, and enterprise turns into the handoff to a different handoff—by the point you get to the tip, the place is the client?” Sclater stated. “There’ll at all times be a must convey issues collectively, to convey concepts collectively round a central mission of serving a buyer.” Keep consistency the place algorithms can’tAs AI is ready to generate infinite permutations of a model AI, the CMO in the end turns into the final guarantor of custom, recognizability, and solidity. “The CMO holds tight to the model,” Sclater stated. “If there isn’t a spot the place the purity or the essence is distilled and powerful, inherently the algorithm will transfer to create completely different variations of it. The CMO at its finest can also be sort of protecting that purity, protecting that consistency.”