The Short Life of the Chief Marketing Officer

The New Media world is bewildering, and few CMOs can live up to the sky-high expectations

by David Kiley and Burt Helm

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Illustration by Koren Shamdi

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Stroll through the C-suite at many companies, and it's an easy bet which executive is a dead man (or woman) walking: the chief marketing officer. CMOs last 26 months on average these days, says recruiter Spencer Stuart, vs. 44 months for CEOs. In the past few weeks, CMOs at Chico's (CHS), Home Depot (HD), MySpace (NWS), and Rite Aid (RAD) all have left their posts after short tenures.

The CMO job is a lot more complicated and arduous than it was just a few years ago. And that, say recruiters and CMOs, helps explain the high turnover. At a time when marketers are faced with a bewildering array of New Media options and consumers are better informed than ever, Wall Street-obsessed CEOs are increasingly impatient for a payoff. "CMOs are expected to deliver instant results," says Mark Jarvis, Dell's (DELL) CMO since October. "It makes for a deadly cocktail of high expectations, resistance, and complexity."

CMOs have always struggled to justify their existence. "You might be surprised how few people have strong opinions about what the chief financial officer or chief information officer is doing," says John Costello, CEO of hearing-aid maker Zounds, who has been CMO at Home Depot, Sears (SHLD), and Yahoo. (YHOO) "But CMOs have almost everyone second-guessing [them] and looking over their shoulder."

FUZZY ASSIGNMENT

Chief executives understand that the CMO's role needs to change to suit new circumstances, but few have figured out how to do so. "Probably 70% of the companies I work with don't know what they're looking for when they recruit a CMO," says Patrick A. Delhougne, who headhunts marketers for executive recruiter Korn/Ferry International (KFY). Jeff Jones, who was the chief marketer at Gap (GPS) for two years before leaving to run ad agency McKinney (HAVSF), says he discussed 22 CMO positions over five months. Not one, he says, spelled out coherently what he would be accountable for.

It's not hard to see why companies are grappling with this. As recently as five years ago, the CMO's role was much simpler. Chief marketers devised a brand message, hired an advertising agency to create clever ads, managed promotions, and then waited for their bonus or pink slip. "You would run a major ad campaign and trust it," says Jim Speros, a veteran marketing executive who is currently CMO at Marsh & McClennan (MMC). But that won't fly in a world where blogs, social networks, and cell phones are fast changing not just where ads go but how people shop.

It doesn't help that chief executives and chief marketers often have very different imperatives. Building or even maintaining a brand is a long-term process that requires patience and incremental change. But CEOs operate at a time when investors fixate on quarterly or monthly results as never before.

Anne MacDonald, who became CMO at Macy's (M) in February, 2006, wanted to move the brand upmarket. Doing so would take time and meant the retailer had to quit its habit of using discounts and promotions to hit monthly sales targets. It seemed like a great idea--till sales started slipping. Without those regular jolts to the top line, analysts began downgrading the stock. After 15 months, MacDonald left Macy's. (She and the company declined to comment on her departure.)