The Idea Blog

The Short Life of the Chief Marketing Officer is the title of a piece in the current (Dec 10, 2007) BusinessWeek. “CMOs lat 26 months on average these days, says recruiter Spencer Stuart, vs. 44 months for CEOs.”

According to Spencer Stuar’s research, the average C-level executive has this half life:

• CEO - 44 mos.
• CFO - 39 mos.
• CIO - 36 mos.
• CMO - 26 mos.

Frightening. Humbling.The reason?

It’s largely two things, according to the article, and I agree.

1. We still lack effective measurements for performance from the marketing group. Whether it’s the agency, the in-house marketing team or anyone else, it’s tough to get a good feel for ROI, a problem solved in virtually every other part of the enterprise. With no good and trustworthy metrics, whim and “gut feelings” take over, and with so much expense involved, “change” is often stronger than “trust.”

2. The media landscape is changing quickly, too quickly for virtually anyone in a position of responsibility to keep up. Online vs. network, blogs vs. print, image vs. promotion, product placement vs. advertising, anything vs. something else - it’s a giant soup of complexity in the media world, and much of it is too hot for safety.

So what’s up for the CMO?