J. G. Navarro
Research expert covering advertising and marketing with a focus on South America
The role of chief marketing officers (CMOs) in the United States – statistics & facts
The CMO is dead. Long live the CMO. When Johnson & Johnson, McDonald's, and Uber ditched the role of global chief marketing officer in 2019, it was a record scratch. More recently, similar moves sound like an orchestra. AB InBev – albeit in the United States only –, Starbucks, Etsy, UPS: Some of the largest corporations operating in the U.S. saw the position as redundant, scrapped it, and redistributed its tasks across the rest of the C-suite. However, not always for good. McDonald's famously reinstituted the position less than a year after removing it, hoping to boost sales during and after the pandemic. A year earlier, Coca-Cola brought back the global CMO role after a two-year hiatus. Other companies changed the job title with the ambition of expanding its capabilities. In 2024, Innocent – a juice brand run by Coca-Cola – altered it to "director for marketing and innovation."
The same 2024 study shows that companies' budget allocation to marketing in the U.S. differed significantly across sectors. Little more than one-third assigned double-digit shares of their budgets to marketing efforts, with consumer packaged goods' (CPG) average standing at 17.5 percent. Meanwhile, the shares among the transportation, mining, construction, consumer services, and energy segments fell behind five percent. Brands choose to scrap the CMO role based on financial and circumstantial factors. It is up to CMOs to prove that, without them, the remaining C-suite would fail to create new customers and drive revenue growth as CEOs expect marketing to do – in 2023, McDonald's topped the ranking of most effective ad campaigns in the U.S.
CMOs' brief tenure went from zero to hero
Why have so many enterprises hesitated to fully embrace the CMO role as a core part of the C-suit? Part of the answer lies in how the perception of the job has shifted. In 2021, around 45 percent of U.S. chief executive officers (CEOs) knew CMOs had the shortest tenure in the C-suite; two years later, the share reached 54 percent. Perhaps more importantly, their opinion on that brevity changed drastically. In 2021 and 2022, four in five U.S. CEOs saw CMOs' short tenure as a sign of failure. In 2023, more than half considered it a proof of success. Meanwhile, CEOs' judgment of their CMOs improved in the U.S., with the share of best-in-class assessments doubling between 2021 and 2023. These figures suggest that more companies tend to see CMOs' mission as a short-term solution-seeking process, similar to that of a campaign, consolidation of a brand's "era," or a rebranding phase, instead of a lasting and linear progression.Marketing leadership's self-awareness
A 2024 survey across North America and Europe asked CMOs to select individuals most skeptical of marketing's value at their companies. Chief financial officers (CFOs) topped the list, chosen by 40 percent of respondents, closely followed by CEOs or their equivalents (39 percent). This perception intertwines with how marketing decision-makers reflect upon their scope of work. During a U.S.-based 2024 study, brand, digital marketing, advertising, and social media emerged as marketing's primary responsibilities in companies according to CMOs. But other functions have been included in that mix. Around half a year earlier, a survey anticipated the desire for a shift in marketing function's primary roles for CMOs in Canada and the U.S. One in five respondents mentioned supporting pricing and advising on distribution strategies during the previous 12 months, with declining intentions to act in those areas in the following year. These results indicate corporations' pressure for a more flexible set of tasks under the belt of their marketing leadership.Are CMOs an endangered species?
March 2024 data reveals that the share of U.S. companies' revenue invested in marketing reached the lowest height for a spring measurement in this decade, a little above 10 percent. A year earlier, CMOs' average tenure at the U.S. top 100 advertisers declined for the second consecutive year to the lowest figure since 2009, the year following the global financial crisis. However, CMOs have reasons for hope. Whereas post-pandemic marketing spending growth rates oscillated between two and three percent, CMOs expected their corporations to raise investments in marketing by almost five percent by early 2025.The same 2024 study shows that companies' budget allocation to marketing in the U.S. differed significantly across sectors. Little more than one-third assigned double-digit shares of their budgets to marketing efforts, with consumer packaged goods' (CPG) average standing at 17.5 percent. Meanwhile, the shares among the transportation, mining, construction, consumer services, and energy segments fell behind five percent. Brands choose to scrap the CMO role based on financial and circumstantial factors. It is up to CMOs to prove that, without them, the remaining C-suite would fail to create new customers and drive revenue growth as CEOs expect marketing to do – in 2023, McDonald's topped the ranking of most effective ad campaigns in the U.S.
