August 14, 2024

By Katie Brown

about the author

KB
Katie Brown  Katie Brown serves as the Director of Business Strategy at luquire. A hybrid left- and right-brain thinker, Katie has served in business, strategy and leadership roles across her fifteen-year career, including Chief of Staff for the Vice Chairman of UBS Wealth Management, Director of Marketing for various nonprofit organizations, and market research lead for Bloomingdale’s, Marriott, Hertz, and Outback Steakhouse. She is an avid reader, red wine lover, and marketing strategy junkie but her favorite role is being “mom” to three kids under five. Katie resides in Charlotte, NC, and holds a dual degree in marketing and finance from Boston College, as well as a Master In Digital Communication from UNC Chapel Hill.
our thoughts <<< suite talk <<<

Don’t let the name fool you. Suite Talk has our top minds going head-to-head with burning questions, no punches pulled.

CMO: Today’s most uncomfortable seat in the suite?

with Katie Brown, Director of Business Strategy

By Katie Brown

With this piece, we launch a new content series, ‘Suite Talk,’ developed with members of the C-Suite for members of the C-Suite. Kicking us off, our Director of Business Strategy, Katie Brown, sets the stage for where we are today with data and insights that point to major shifts in requirements for measurable marketing success.  

At a glance:

  • CMO roles are being challenged, evolved and eliminated 
  • The C-Suite is losing trust in the CMO and their marketing programs 
  • CMO success is being measured differently – and this demands new learning 

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She was a force. Five-foot-ten, sharply tailored power suit, immaculate hair, and an “I have a second home in Naples” kind of tan. One of only two women on a C-suite of 12 and a disciple of traditional marketing strategy, she was the first CMO I was ever exposed to.  

And she taught me one of the most valuable lessons of my career: Don’t ever lose sight of the business. 

Powerful. Simple. And incredibly relevant, especially in the context of today’s world, where CMO roles across industries are being challenged, evolved, and even eliminated. 

Her lesson warned her flock of young CMO hopefuls not to get caught up in the flashy, next-best-thing vortex that marketing can become. It was a critical, north-star reminder that if we took our eye off the real goal of marketing – driving the business forward – we would become ineffective, and ultimately, irrelevant. 

Sometimes, success isn’t splashy  

In order to achieve business goals, we needed to understand all aspects of the business. We were expected to collaborate with operations teammates, deeply understand the sales process, regularly meet with the CTO, and more. It didn’t feel like the sexy Madison Avenue marketing experience I imagined, but it got results. With her guidance, our team stayed together, avoided layoffs, and most importantly, built business resiliency and momentum for a major bank hit hard (like everyone else) by the Great Recession.  

How? We cultivated creativity where traditionally it had been neglected – business strategy, marketing technology, and one of the first compliance-approved social media strategies for financial advisors. By keeping our eye on what mattered most, the business came out ahead.  

As demands increase, trust decreases 

Today, more than 15 years later, my experience at the bank is more relevant than ever.  

CMOs are being asked not just to understand but to have prowess across analytics, AI, the tech stack, and operations-based problems. They’re being tasked with responsibility across the full sales funnel and the customer experience outside of it, from soup to nuts.  

line graph showing increasing demand and decreasing trust

Companies like Starbucks, Coca-Cola, IKEA, and more have recently done away with or significantly revamped the CMO role. What’s more, an early 2024 CEO study from Boathouse tells us that only 49% of their 150 surveyed CEOs rank their marketing programs as “best in class” and that they trust their CFO, COO, and CSOs (Chief Strategy Officer) executives far more than their CMOs.  

We can say sayonara to the gilded age of marketing success being measured by a creative Super Bowl ad or a buzzy campaign, and ushering in the already in-motion era of the CMO Swiss army knife.  

That’s why we’re here and what this new series, Suite Talk, is all about. I’ll be talking to top minds from across our company and major brands, as well as researchers, academics and thought leaders, to dissect the major shift that is happening in our industry and how to not just keep up but get ahead.  

With consumers more powerful than ever and technology still advancing us at breakneck speed, this is sure to be a fun ride.  

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Here are a few upcoming topics to look forward to and some must-reads from my stack below: 

  • Finally, the customer has a seat at the c-suite table: The rapid rise of the CXO 
  • Does focusing on marketing attribution help or hurt your brand?  
  • What can generational history teach us about Gen Z and how to reach them more effectively?  
  • What happens to brands when consumers become more powerful than ever? (Spoiler alert: They already are)  
  • When creativity becomes a blind spot: Losing the business for the brand  

about the author

KB
Katie Brown  Katie Brown serves as the Director of Business Strategy at luquire. A hybrid left- and right-brain thinker, Katie has served in business, strategy and leadership roles across her fifteen-year career, including Chief of Staff for the Vice Chairman of UBS Wealth Management, Director of Marketing for various nonprofit organizations, and market research lead for Bloomingdale’s, Marriott, Hertz, and Outback Steakhouse. She is an avid reader, red wine lover, and marketing strategy junkie but her favorite role is being “mom” to three kids under five. Katie resides in Charlotte, NC, and holds a dual degree in marketing and finance from Boston College, as well as a Master In Digital Communication from UNC Chapel Hill.