Ask Gartner anything... about Marketing | How is the CMO role evolving?

I'm Chris Ross, vice president, analyst with Gardner for marketers, and I'm here today to answer a few questions from clients on the evolving role of the CMO.

So, there's a huge movement to be much more

customer centric, and a lot of this focus on customer centricity operates under the banner of customer experience, and in many cases,

CMOs are leading the charge when it comes to customer

experience. In other cases, they're just a major contributor, but in either case, CMOs are deeply involved in customer experience.

One of the other things that's driving this narrative about CMOs

becoming chief customer officers is this focus on insight.

You can't be customer focused and customer centric unless you really have a deep understanding of customers and

what they want and what they need.

So, that means that CMOs need to be much more tuned in to consumer trends, to marketplace dynamics, to competitive behaviors.

So, this requirement to be the insight engine for the organization is another

one of those things that's contributing to this chief customer officer dynamic.

So, the combination of CMOs being much more involved in customer experience overall and