PALO ALTO, Calif. (April 15, 2009) – Think you can be a Chief Marketing Officer? According to the over 4,000 members of the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council, a CMO must be a customer-centric visionary thought leader who can master strategy in this digital age.

Through a proprietary mathematically based methodology created by Bluprints™, originators of the process to decipher business genetics, the CMO Council community was polled to define the quintessential modern CMO as defined by global CMOs.

Among the most essential qualities, a CMO must be:

• A visionary & thought leader


• Strong business driver


• Ability to secure executive support & foster cross functional relationships


• Customer centric


• Competitive strategy guru


• Brand advocate & champion


• Digital savvy

"The DNA of a CMO is certainly in line with the findings from our 2009 Marketing Outlook research that showed Marketers are keen to drive the bottom line, be strategic leaders and demonstrate clear ROI and accept responsibility for marketing intentions," said Liz Miller, VP of Programs & Operations for the CMO Council. "The role of the CMO has been transformed from keeper of the brand to true business driver and strategic leader. And most important, CMOs themselves have mapped and identified this new roadmap."

Those qualities that CMO Council members voiced as most detrimental to success include being out of touch with customer's needs, a lack of accountability, a failure to execute or follow-through with strategy, neglecting quantifiable ROI and being a poor leader with a silod mentality. Most interesting is a clear shift in the senior marketing ranks as the final trait to avoid or remove is a one-dimensional “marketing as advertising” mindset.

"What makes this exercise compelling is that it asks the community to define its own core value," said Guy Martin, founder and MD of Bluprints™ and leader of the Mapping the DNA of CMO exercise. "The global membership was engaged online to express their intuitive opinions on what they identified to be the most important Top Line ENABLERS (which multiply value) and Bottom Line DISABLERS (which divide value) to the effectiveness and success of the modern CMO."

This same process has been used to identify the core Bluprint™ of an enterprise, capturing and visualizing a corporate culture. "We saw this as an opportunity to engage with our employees to help map and define our culture," commented Anthony Stroebel, Group Marketing Director for Pam Golding Properties, and CMO Council Africa Advisory Board Member. "Our entire DNA, from our dedication to the customer to our belief that our employees are truly a team, have been defined by the company as a whole and is proudly on display for everyone to remember and aspire to uphold."

"Seeing this process be applied to the Chief Marketing Officer community globally has brought a global think tank to crystallize a unified goal for marketing: strong strategies leading marketing and driving business," concluded Miller. "And as the span of authority continues to grow, we venture to say that the requirements and factors included in this equation will grow and expand."

A complete formula outlining both positive and negative traits pulling at the core of the CMO are available for download (JPG 3MB).

To receive individual trait icons, or the completed formula for editorial use, please contact Matthew Farrell at mfarrell@globalfluency.com

About the CMO Council
The Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council is dedicated to high-level knowledge exchange, thought leadership and personal relationship building among senior corporate marketing leaders and brand decision-makers across a wide-range of global industries. The CMO Council's 4,000 members control more than $120 billion in aggregated annual marketing expenditures and run complex, distributed marketing and sales operations worldwide. In total, the CMO Council and its strategic interest communities include over 17,000 global executives in nearly 100 countries covering multiple industries, segments and markets. Regional chapters and advisory boards are active in the Americas, Europe, Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa. The Council's strategic interest groups include the Coalition to Leverage and Optimize Sales Effectiveness (CLOSE), Brand Management Institute, and the Forum to Advance the Mobile Experience (FAME). More information on the CMO Council is available at www.cmocouncil.org.

About Bluprints™
Bluprints™ operates a global internet-based research service to assist CEOs to define their quintessential branded cultures. Employing a one-of-a-kind methodology to decipher organizational DNA in mathematics, a branded culture is crystallized as a winning philosophy for success in an elegantly simple way. Every organization will have a unique Formula for Success (their ultimate branded culture) to be aspired to. Through a fully participative process, a branded culture can be systematically distilled to discover a simple algebraic equation, or DNA, for all to buy into and live by. Brought alive through the use of artwork to express a Formula visually, alignment to a branded culture is communicated and sustained for all to see, experience consciously and subliminally and to be deeply reflected upon. More information on Bluprints™ is available at www.blu-prints.com.

Contacts:
Matt Farrell
E-mail: mfarrell@globalfluency.com