Corporate marketing organisations are undergoing major transformations and are increasingly fulfilling a significant role in driving business performance, says a report.

Leading chief marketing officers (CMOs) are tightly integrating marketing with other corporate functions as they get closer to customers, capture the benefits of new media, and demand more from their agency partners, says a  new book commissioned by management consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton and the ANA (Association of National Advertisers) in the United States, and published by strategy+business Books.

It uncovers why, as the firms’ ongoing joint research shows, revenue growth and profitability are strongest among companies that elevate the role of marketing to the highest possible level, said a statement.

“In any company, the CMO has to be not only the consumer-insights champion, but also the person who is really valuing what the enterprise is working on,” says Procter & Gamble’s CMO Jim Stengel.

CMO Thought Leaders: The Rise of the Strategic Marketer, edited by Geoffrey Precourt with an introduction by Gregor Harter, Edward Landry and Andrew Tipping, features interviews with 15 of the world’s most influential and effective marketing leaders who are redefining the practice of marketing as they help drive their companies’ growth agendas. 

Across industries, from Jim Stengel at Procter & Gamble to Beth Comstock at GE’s NBC Universal and John Hayes at American Express, marketing chiefs are aligning their marketing strategies with management goals, and working more closely than ever with manufacturing, distribution, sales and finance to deliver results.

“Today, the role of the CMO demands openness to experimentation, an inclination towards pioneering, and an ability to integrate marketing with strategy as never before,” says Edward Landry, vice president at Booz Allen.  “The stakes are high for CMOs today; Spencer Stuart’s latest research showed that average tenure at 100 leading consumer goods companies is now just over two years – and the number of vacancies in the role has doubled since last year.  To be successful ‘Growth Champions’ for their organizations, CMOs must be empowered to be curious, to take risks, to learn, and to sometimes fail, but always to grow.”

Six important themes emerged from the series of interviews with leading CMOs, revealing that the business of making powerful connections with customers is in the midst of unprecedented change:

* Put the customer at the heart of marketing: Adopting a customer-centric perspective is an integral part of every successful marketing organization, and it no longer relies on intuition.  CMOs are pushing their organizations on every front to gain sustained exposure to what their customers are thinking and doing.   “The customer influences almost everything that happens in marketing today, from research, to engagement with innovation and product development, to the vehicles companies use to communicate with their customers,” says Bob Liodice, president and CEO of the ANA.  

* Make marketing accountable:  Finding ways to accurately measure return on investment remains a thorny issue for CMOs, and is the leading factor that brings marketing under pressure from management.   Research from Booz Allen and the ANA finds that 90 percent of marketers across nine industries see measurement as a major challenge.  The most successful CMOs have convinced colleagues that marketing accountability takes place on two levels:  the specific return on marketing programs, and the overall health of the business and brands.  “I find that my colleagues will support me if they see the results of our successes and…the discipline of our efforts, and quite frankly, the transparency of our failures,” says John Hayes, CMO of American Express.

* Embrace the challenges<