As part of coverage of this year’s CMO Power List, presented this year by atn, B&T asked CMOs about the skills that marketers will need to remain relevant and what advice they would offer up and coming marketers who would like to rise to CMO in the future.
Understand your business
Kate Miller has worked at Coca-Cola for the past 17 years and now leads its marketing function across the South Pacific region.
She told B&T that “digital, data and AI capabilities” will make marketing functions much more sophisticated in the future and marketers need to be prepared.
However, when it boils down to it, there are some skills that have always been important in marketing and will continue to be so in the future. Specifically, she cites creativity and storytelling.
“It won’t just be about trying to stop people with your advertising,” she said. “As they’re scrolling through their social feeds and various other media channels, it’s going to be a lot harder to get attention than when we just put an ad on TV.”
Another thing that she says is fundamental is for marketers to truly understand their business “from top to bottom”.
“You need to really understand what works and how you drive growth in the business,” she said. “More than ever, things are changing quickly, and you’ve got to bring that inspiration into the company to help teams sell what they want to do and also create the right programs.”
Her advice to up and coming marketers is to “be brave” to cut through in the marketplace.
“Understand what’s happening in culture, understand your bottom line and how that all works in terms of the commercials. While it’s important to have that breadth of experience, ultimately you need to be brave at times.”
Aldi’s marketing director Jenny Melhuish also urged marketeers to “be curious and genuinely interested about all areas of the business”.
“Marketing alone won’t achieve business goals,” she explained. “You need to work with and alongside your peer group to understand how it all connects and have solid knowledge around how the company makes money.”
Constantly learn and develop
Tourism Australia chief marketing officer Susan Coghill said that effective marketers need to have strong foundations.
This means “understanding the consumer, understanding the marketplace and setting a strategy before developing tactics and executions that will influence consumer choice.”
“In a world where AI and content saturation is going to be a challenge, great storytelling skills, regardless of the channel, is going to be incredibly important,” she added.
“It’s not just about storytelling in a TV spot or being engaging in any channel, but it’s also about storytelling within business. For example, the way that we get funding, the way that you sell in an initiative, the way that you get your board members or your stakeholders on board really does come down to a marketer’s ability to tell a really good story.“
Coghill, who headed up advertising at Qantas and Westpac prior to joining Tourism Australia, offers CMOs of the future three pieces of advice.
Firstly, have a vision of a better future and what’s possible rather than just continuing to do the same thing.
She said it’s important to communicate that vision and rally colleagues behind it, and then build the right team to deliver on that vision.
“I think that is down to hiring people who are smarter than yourself,” she added. “Invest in your learning and education early on, take every opportunity to learn and participate in the industry, and get your hands dirty on anything and everything.”
The education and constant development theme also rings true for Kia Motors general manager of marketing Dean Norbiato, who previously played rugby league for Canberra Raiders first grade team before turning to to a career in business.
“Sports in my DNA and blood and I’ve learned a lot from both success and failures,” he said. “I’ve learned a lot from good bosses but I’ve learned even more from bad bosses and bad coaches. I think you just need to be constantly learning and educating.”
Norbiato said that it is important marketers have excellent communications and collaborate with the c-suite, other functions and also external partners, such as creative agencies, media agencies and other suppliers.
“Unless you’re a good communicator, it’s difficult to take them on the journey and gt them to buy into a bigger purpose,” he said.
“As a CMO, it’s your role to unlock that discretionary 10 per cent that everybody can give, but doesn’t have to.”
He also believes that young talent can gain a lot by gaining experience working at an agency.
“You don’t get taught people skills at university, you get taught a textbook,” he said.
“I think the more you can put yourself out of your comfort zone and experience different marketing elements, the better. I would be pushing all young people into agencies for as long as you can physically last before moving brand side.”
