McKinsey study finds CMOs increasingly charged with growth remits

In January, Xerox CMO Deena LaMarque Piquion took on the additional role of chief growth and disruption officer. On top of her previous marketing duties, she now oversees all communications and handles revenue operations, including sales, client experience and pricing operations. 

“This has helped position marketing in a better way internally because we’re more closely connected and aligned to the business, to the go-to-market leaders, to their business objectives and to their challenges,” Piquion said.

A new survey by McKinsey of 100 C-suite marketing executives found CMOs are increasingly being put in charge of divisions other than marketing, and eight out of 10 are being asked to lead growth opportunities. 

“In today’s landscape, CMOs are integral to steering digital transformation and fostering brand loyalty while also supporting company culture and aligning marketing strategies with the organisation’s values,” OutSystems CMO Christine Nurnberger explained. “This requires balancing creative vision with data analytics, making it a highly strategic and multifaceted role.” 

The scope of the CMO now includes product innovation, pricing, promotions, research and development and even managing AI. But McKinsey’s survey found only one of four CMOs believed their organisation was equipped to handle these additional roles. “[CMOs] are driving the growth agenda,” said Biljana Cvetanovski, a McKinsey partner who co-authored the survey. “They also have a very increased remit, and they’re finding themselves even more challenged to drive that agenda.” 

McKinsey found one issue CMOs faced was between a company’s priorities and the ability it had to reach those goals. 

About 87% of CMOs believe that brand-building is “strategically important,” but only a little over half rate their companies as “mature” or “extremely mature” in this task. Eight out of 10 found measuring performance marketing key, but only four out of 10 said their businesses were “mature” enough to handle it. Delivering growth becomes more challenging with new technologies, like AI. The McKinsey survey found 74% of CMOs viewed generative AI as more of an opportunity than a risk. But only 9% have evaluated opportunities, and 5% were building out capabilities. 

“AI is a powerful tool that can and should be thoughtfully used to reduce complexity, analyze data and personally interact with customers,” said Pete & Gerry’s CMO Phyllis Rothschild. “However, technology should not just be used for technology’s sake—with the introduction of new platforms and tools, all data strategies must map back to understanding the shopper journey and key marketing objectives to be successful.”

Xerox uses AI for translation and is adding a customer data platform with AI to get a better look at its first-party client data. The hope is that generative AI can create relevant and personal content. 

“In terms of resources and budget, most companies are still working to figure out how to use Gen AI for enterprise marketing purposes, given the tool requires a more customised model built off specific client data sets,” said Xerox’s Piquion. “To support this, organizations will need to account for time and resources spent on training, maintenance, and support requirements.” 

The most successful companies who have utilised AI have the support of the whole organisation, Cvetanovski said. They can also show how the use of generative AI can deliver business outcomes.

“If you look at more mature organisations, there's a clear link between the strategy and the business outcomes,” McKinsey’s Cvetanovski said. “They've got clearly set budgets that they can tap into, and they've actually broken through silos. So they have the ability to drive cross-functional collaboration.”