Global marketing study releases early results, asks for your input

The chief marketing officers of Unilever, IBM, VISA and Adobe chaired the first ever CMO roundtable at the Cannes Lions Festival, where they and more than 60 other CMOs and leading marketers discussed early findings of the Marketing2020 study.

Marketing2020 is a joint initiative by EffectiveBrands, the ANA, the WFA, Spencer Stuart, Forbes, Adobe and MetrixLab. When completed, the study will represent the largest ever qualitative and quantitative study of marketing leaders and organisations, and will provide marketers around the world with best-practices to focus on, organise for and support business growth. Over the past three months, 350 CEOs, CMOs, CMO peers and agency leaders and several thousand marketers from around the world have contributed to the study.

The Cannes roundtable was the first in a series of CMO roundtables to be held around the world as a part of Marketing2020. Participants at each will examine the role and creation of purposeful brands, the structure, role and capabilities of marketing, how to analyse big data in marketing, the role of the CMO and collaboration with agencies.

Early findings discussed at the Cannes Lions Festival include:

• Fifty-eight per cent of marketers work closely with their CEOs to establish the company’s strategic growth agenda—a 20 percent increase from 2006
• Seventy-three per cent of marketers believe brands with a societal purpose drive business growth
• Ninety per cent of marketers expect the size of global marketing departments to remain the same or increase over the next five years
• Sixty-five per cent of senior marketers expect marketing and communications departments to merge in the next five years
• Only 20 per cent of marketers feel their teams receive adequate training, even though increased marketer training correlates with increased business growth.

“Global marketing leaders are looking for guidance on how to structure their organisations,” said Marc de Swaan Arons, founder of EffectiveBrands and head of Marketing2020. “It is gratifying to see so many senior marketing leaders embrace Marketing2020. We are confident that it will be an incredibly valuable exchange and learning platform for all involved.”

The study also revealed:

• Technology developments drive massive change in the way marketers develop value propositions and connect with consumers
• Data mining and analytics are the capabilities marketers most want to develop over the next five years
• The role of brands will increase significantly despite increasing consumer information and global transparency
• Marketing leaders of organisations outgrowing their competition tend to be closer to consumers and focus more on developing people in comparison to their peers
• Creative and agency partners will play a more important role in marketing organisations in the future.