A recent article in Advertising Age brings to light the qualities of a new breed of CMO. Gone are the days of more style than substance, more flair than foundation, more flamboyance than “meat”. In other words, we’re in the post-rock-star CMO era.
There is something to this, trust me. A CMO has two major constituencies: internal stakeholders and external stakeholders. Internally, with more and more CMO’s having a stronger voice around Board tables, the onus is on them to show actual results rather than be a cheerleader. Externally, in trying economic times, people don’t really want to hear a lot of talk and promises. They want to be impressed, and it is a CMO’s job to have their business stand out, but it is increasingly important to achieve this through tangible action.
One quality mentioned in the Ad Age piece is humility and a “team first” mentality. Nowadays if you’re a CMO, I don’t know how you survive without these two things. Hopefully you’re on an executive team, like I am fortunate enough to be, that if anyone gets too much of an ego or “me first” mentality, they get brought back down to earth immediately.
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A few quick words of thanks to John Chow, Shoemoney, DK and Bevo Media for their shout-outs and compliments relating to our company’s party at the Playboy Mansion. As a lot of you know, it was our 2nd year doing the Epic Publisher Challenge, which was a 6 month competition for our web publishers culminating in an expenses paid weekend in LA and a party at the Playboy Mansion for the 50 or so top performers. Beyond the great time had by all, the competition itself and the formula we used throughout the 6-month competition could really be a business school case study in how to do event marketing and have what is seemingly a large expense become a major revenue producer and brand tent pole. I’ll be doing an entire series of posts in the future in which I will detail the thinking and rationale behind how I view incentives and event marketing and why they go together. I feel this is an important topic that a lot of companies or businesses can use if they know their target audience(s).
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My colleagues at Advantage Media launched a new series called “Author Advantage TV”. My friend Adam Witty, CEO of Advantage Media, is the host of this weekly show. Keep an eye on them in the coming months and you might see a familiar face or two.
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Finally, a piece I wrote early in 2010 for iMedia Connection about the importance of corporate culture, which tied in at the time with a theme I covered in depth in Winning the Web magazine, has gotten a lot of positive reaction and significant pass-around as of late. More and more, in these trying economic times, corporate culture is potentially THE most important element in a company’s success. People usually perform better when they are interested, passionate and having fun. As I pointed out, part of a strong culture is about communication. Whether from the top down, or across departments, making sure employees feel not only in the loop but as having a say-so in things is a huge factor to a company’s short and long-term success. Also be sure to check out Advertising Age on Monday, September 20th for a list of the best company’s to work for in Media and Marketing.