Driving Change as the CMO

Lead­er­ship and inno­va­tion were the focus of sev­er­al of our exclu­sive con­trib­u­tors on CMO.com over the last two weeks. The ever-chang­ing mar­ket­ing land­scape requires a cer­tain courage to lead from the CMO. Whether it’s guid­ing a team to reach con­sen­sus on a course of action or dri­ving change through dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion, CMOs often jug­gle many respon­si­bil­i­ties to reach cus­tomers and main­tain their brands’ com­pet­i­tive edge.

Lad­brokes CMO Kristof Fahy sat down for an exclu­sive inter­view with CMO.com. He dis­cussed the move that Lad­brokes, one of the largest UK bet­ting and gam­ing firms, recent­ly made from a chan­nel-led mar­ket­ing strat­e­gy to being more cus­tomer-focused. With a focus on the cus­tomer, Fahy works to get the company’s pro­mo­tions and offers in front of those cus­tomers. He also men­tioned the impor­tance of sur­round­ing him­self with tal­ent­ed peo­ple with a vari­ety of skills.

CMO thought leader, speak­er, and author Thomas Bar­ta dis­cussed the impor­tance of lead­er­ship skills in a CMO. After recap­ping a pre­vi­ous arti­cle he wrote about the CMO lead­ing change, Bar­ta reit­er­at­ed the need for the CMO to make things hap­pen for cus­tomers. CMOs often need to build con­sen­sus in their teams, but at times when con­sen­sus is hard to find and impor­tant cus­tomer-focused ini­tia­tives are con­se­quent­ly in dan­ger, Bar­ta encour­ages the CMO to “rent a bull­doz­er” to get things done when necessary.

In an exclu­sive inter­view with CMO.com, Travelex’s glob­al mar­ket­ing direc­tor, Dominic Groun­sell, shared the oppor­tu­ni­ties his com­pa­ny has to talk to cus­tomers about things that are both inter­est­ing and impor­tant to them. To have these con­ver­sa­tions, Trav­elex is under­go­ing “a very fast-paced dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion.” Groun­sell shared the chal­lenges the com­pa­ny is fac­ing in the midst of this trans­for­ma­tion and the goals that dri­ve them to con­tin­ue in the right direction.

Dominic Mills, chief tech­nol­o­gy offi­cer at Zone, explored the role brands play in help­ing con­sumers get the most from their mobile phones. One of the most impor­tant insights Mills out­lined was the increas­ing lev­el of tech­nol­o­gy in mobile phones, mak­ing expe­ri­ences some­thing that can be deliv­ered to con­sumers. Brands should be lead­ing the way in being ambi­tious when it comes to mobile, find­ing ways “to take the fight back to the dis­rupters on their own mobile turf.”

Mar­tin New­man, CEO of Prac­ti­col­o­gy, chal­lenged CMOs to explore what cus­tomer-cen­tric­i­ty looks like in a com­pa­ny. Cus­tomer-cen­tric­i­ty often requires a rejec­tion of the tra­di­tion­al mar­ket­ing mix frame­work in favor of a new cus­tomer mix frame­work. New­man shared how three pop­u­lar brands are embrac­ing the cus­tomer mix frame­work to make cus­tomer-cen­tric­i­ty a reality.

We hope you’ll read and engage with our exclu­sive con­tent on CMO.com, and please let us know what you think.