At the iMedia Brand Summit earlier this month, Wenda Harris Millard (formerly Chief Sales Officer at Yahoo! and Executive Vice President of DoubleClick) addressed an audience of senior level marketing executives with her presentation titled "How Did We Get Here?" Currently serving as President, Media for Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, Ms. Millard presented a perspective on the current condition of the advertising industry.
Quoting Jonah Bloom from a recent article that appeared in AdAge, she suggested that tomorrow’s CMO will be renamed Complexity Management Officer.
At first, I found this merely a clever way of emphasizing her point. As I thought about it more, however, I realized that this is a very plausible notion, especially given the profound changes taking place in media and marketing today.
Today’s marketers need to consider literally thousands of ways their companies can interact with customers. And, today more than ever, they need to continually reevaluate their customer & prospect segments.
The media universe has transformed itself, and it’s imperative that marketers stay informed about all the innovations that are emerging and changing the rules of advertising altogether. And, they’re getting increasing pressure to directly associate an ROI with every dollar spent.
According to David Court in an article he published in The McKinsey Quarterly, "With more countries, more customer segments, more media, and more distribution channels, companies and their CMOs are waging a battle with complexity."
That just about says it all.
