POV

The practice of persuading consumers to influence how they think, feel and behave is in the early stages of a seismic shift.

Ignited by the emergence of the Connected Consumer — an individual who is always on, filtering, sharing, ignoring content — this new era has been supercharged by the rapid development of AI technologies, specifically GenAI. This transformation is not only inevitable; it’s imperative.

The reality is modern marketing — identifying an audience, reaching that audience in the right channel, delivering the right experience and measuring with precision — has become too hard. Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) know it. 59% say that their companies lack the toolset and skillset to achieve their marketing objectives. They also know that they cannot deliver what consumers want: 71% aspire to deliver personalized experiences, according to McKinsey, but only 15% think they do it well.

The root cause of this problem is the application of yesterday’s solution — scale — to the primary challenge of today — connection. The massive amount of data created every day and the related rise in data storage capacity has left marketers with an overwhelming challenge: Data is abundant, but intelligence is scarce.

Data is the what (and too often the when); intelligence is the how. Without the how, marketers consistently miss the mark and fail to achieve better experiences for consumers, and better results for their brand.

This intelligence gap is pervasive, persistent and pernicious. It is impairing the ability of CMOs and their teams to deliver growth. This is the inflection point.

Marketing Transformation

GenAI holds the promise to close the intelligence gap and to transform marketing. The adoption of GenAI to know more, do more, learn more and achieve more also has the potential to transform marketers, starting with the CMO. We talk about the modern CMO — part psychologist, part analyst, part evangelist, all innovator — but the role of the CMO is itself a modern position.

The first CMO was appointed 30 years ago by the Coca-Cola Company, the paragon of brand management (sorry, P&G). As companies in the Fortune 500 and beyond filled this role to round out an increasingly crowded C-Suite, CMOs were tasked to be “brand stewards.”

In 2024, brand stewardship is necessary but not sufficient for a CMO to excel at a time of intensified competition, macroeconomic uncertainty, cultural shifts and the increasingly connected consumer.

Moreover, at a time when CEOs and boards are seeking profitable growth, a focus on the fuzzy brand stewardship seems downright quaint. In this new era in which growth is at a premium and intelligence is at a deficit, CMOs must embrace a new mandate: Chief Growth Officer.

The first step in this transformation is simple in theory but complex in execution: elevating intelligence from a weakness to a superpower. As we stand at this inflection point, every CMO has a choice: look backward or move forward.

CMOs who embrace the GenAI revolution and take bold steps to close the intelligence gap will be the ones who lead their brands to new levels of growth. This transformation will require investment in new technologies, new skills and new ways of working. It will require a willingness to experiment, to learn and to adapt. It will not be easy. But in this age, when intelligence is the ultimate competitive advantage, the future belongs to those who are willing to embrace it.

This expert opinion is extracted from the CMO Intentions 2024 - Fueling MarTech Innovation Through AI report, sponsored by Zeta Global. The findings of this exclusive CMO Council report are based on a survey of nearly 200 marketing leaders. Over 90% of respondents hold CMO/CRO/CGO/CXO/SVP/VP titles, and 70% represent large corporations with annual revenues of more than $1 billion.

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