Remembering What the “Mar” in Martech is All About

Happy 2024 everyone, I could not be more excited about the year ahead. I’ve just caught up on everyone’s CES “hot takes” and I’ve read several “trends to watch in 2024” including a great set from our Partner Josh Vincent you should check out here. With that said, it was a recent LinkedIn post by a respected member of the marketing industry which has me reflecting on the future of Marketing. The post bemoans the growing loss of CMO positions across major brands. I quickly realized there’s a valuable lesson for those of us working in marketing technology and data. Primarily, don’t get so excited about what technology can do that you forget what the “mar” in martech is all about. Read on for more…

Marketing vs Advertising

It’s true, the CMO title, if not already on the endangered species list, seems to be headed that way. Of our top 5 clients two maintain a CMO role, one a Chief Growth Officer, one a Chief Brand Officer, and one does not list a similar title among their executive leadership team. Why might this shift or even removal of marketing leadership titles be happening? Well, here’s a rough translation of my comment to the original LinkedIn post:

I was trained that Marketing as a function is dedicated to driving growth through the 4 P’s.  Those are, product, price, place and promotion. Promotion in this case represents all forms of advertising. I would challenge those reading this to consider:

• How many CMO roles today are charged with considering all 4 P’s as core to their accountability to the company? Vs those expected or asked to drive growth through promotion alone.
• How many individuals in the role of CMO today are trained and prepared to lead strategy development that may require changes in product, pricing, or distribution (place)? 
• How many can effectively collaborate with and influence across product leadership, finance leadership and sales leadership to implement such changes?

Now consider, if a CMO is truly leading and delivering results through all 4 P’s.  Do you think the CEO views that role very differently than one primarily focused on the promotion/advertising aspect of the job?

Technology For the Sake of the Business

Last week one of our client teams spent a valuable afternoon updating their Chief Growth Officer. The project involves a little bit of everything, ranging from technology evaluation, to solidifying an enterprise data strategy.  It also includes standardizing capabilities such as measurement, and evolving all the marketing operations which bring these things to life. 

The CGO provided the perfect feedback, shortly into this martech and data strategy update. “Make sure it’s anchored to the regional business objective,” they said. I could not nod my head fast or vigorously enough. This simple statement identifies a primary reason martech projects fail. And perhaps why CMO roles continue to quietly exit the organization. Marketing is often viewed as a “flashy” function. I’ve seen survey results which place marketing next to politicians as “least trusted” titles. Additionally, we often suffer from “shiny ball syndrome”, doing something for show vs. being meaningful to business results. Unfortunately there are many martech and adtech projects which fall into this category. 

So what, is martech fundamentally just not that valuable to a business? Quite the opposite, but we cannot forget what the “mar” is all about – marketing in its most true form. Data and technology should disrupt and improve how your business thinks about product, price, and place just as much as it does promotion. When marketing capabilities are applied across the 4 P’s, the impact to overall business objectives becomes crystal clear.

Conclusion

So who is in the perfect position to deploy the potential of data and technology across all 4 P’s? The marketer who is laser focused on business objectives vs. flashy advertising case studies. From this perspective, perhaps we will begin to see a revival of the CMO role.  Ideally filled by those who embrace technology while having the vision to apply it across the whole of marketing. 

In closing, I found one LinkedIn post to be a great reminder and call to action for myself and all of Transparent Partners in 2024. We are committed to simplifying the intricacies of the Martech landscape, and providing value to data-driven marketers. We will continue to do so while focusing on business objectives and helping clients apply tech and data across the whole of marketing. Maybe we will help create a few new CMO’s along the way!