With technology advancing at an unprecedented rate the role of the CMO will inevitably have to evolve.
British science fiction writer, Arthur C. Clarke said, “any efficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”.
Did you know:
- In five years quantum computing will replace traditional computing
- 90% of all the data in the world was created in the last 12 months and it’s going to be 40% bigger in five years
- A million devices will be added to the internet every hour by 2020
- By 2020 all browsing activity will happen without a screen, through voice technology.
And although the technology and advances in the marketing industry are exciting and feel like magic, marketers are overwhelmed with all this new data. They don’t know what to do with it.
That's why IBM doesn't invest money in branding but on people - 'We spend £6 billion on 3000 research scientists and Nobel Prize Winners' - interestingly, successful companies invest five times more in people than technology, says IBM's Jeremy Waite.
8% of the world top brands are getting rid of CMO roles
The Chief Marketing Officer role is being disrupted because it's not fit for purpose anymore, with brands such as Coca-Cola ditching the traditional CMO role in favour of growth officers instead.
Jeremy Waite suggests the traditional c-suite role will be split into three:
- chief enterprise officer
- chief strategic officer
- chief commercial officer
And even if your company isn't making the chief marketing officer role redundant, 80% of CEO's and 55% of consumers don’t trust CMO's.
So, Artificial Intelligence (or Intelligent Assistant, as Jeremy puts it) will be crucial in the evolving CMO role.
To put it simply, when it comes to marketing, there are two ways to sell: You can inspire or you can manipulate.
Through their dashboard and open source data, IBM Watson are helping CMO's build emotional connections based on trust using technology.
For example, marketers can analyse consumer's emotions on Twitter to figure out how to inspire them, without asking for any information.
Technology will, therefore, play a huge part in not only the breaking but also the making of the new CMO role.