Crisis, culture and costs: The new reality of the modern CMO

"Today, marketers are on the hook for risk, revenue and cultural fallout and the CMO role is being rewritten to require tech prowess, political fluency and defending the bottom line. "We always joke that to be a CMO, you need to be a strategist, a storyteller and an operator today," said Krista Dalton, chief marketing and digital officer of Tecovas, a shoe brand."

"Already, the role is one defined by churn and shifting ground. To put some numbers to it, WARC reports the average CMO tenure is up to 4.3 years in 2024. That figure is up from the 4.2 years reported in 2023, but still lags behind the C-suite average of 4.9 years. "We are living in an ambiguous time," said Lauren Danis, Eventbrite CBO and CCO. "The key is to be in front," she added, referring to impending changes across the marketing landscape."

The CMO role has expanded from brand storytelling to encompassing risk, revenue, cultural fallout, technology capabilities, political fluency, and protecting the bottom line. CMOs must combine strategy, storytelling, and operations while balancing brand building with reputation management. Organizational silos between marketing, communications, finance, and technology are dissolving, which can create ambiguity around responsibilities. The role experiences frequent turnover, with average tenure around 4.3 years in 2024, below the broader C-suite average. Politics and culture increasingly shape marketing outcomes, producing high-profile backlash and forcing marketers to stay proactive amid shifting dynamics.

Read at Digiday