Over the past three decades, the marketing function has evolved organically, often without experienced oversight to define its responsibilities and accountabilities. This evolution has seen marketing departments lurch from one new activity to another—digital, social media, customer experience (CX), artificial intelligence (AI), and more—resulting in increased headcount but diminishing influence and value. The core role of marketing, which is to drive growth, has been overshadowed by these changes.

The Growth of Customer Experience (CX)

Today, Marketing Leaders are deemed responsible for every aspect of CX, spanning technology, data, analytics, and account growth, often without full accountability. This broad scope has led to cross-functional inefficiencies that constrain profit and digital-enabled growth. According to McKinsey, companies that excel in CX can achieve revenue growth rates 4-8% above their market average¹. However, the lack of clear accountability and the complexity of managing CX across multiple functions often hinder these potential gains.

The Strategy-Execution Gap

Growth remains a marketing priority, but the tools and control necessary to achieve it are often outside the marketing department’s purview. This leads to a significant gap between strategy and execution. A Harvard Business Review study found that two-thirds of executives believe their organisations struggle to bridge this gap². This disconnect contributes to the high turnover rate among senior marketing executives, which LinkedIn reports as the highest of any job function at 17%³. The inability to meet growth KPIs is a primary reason for this turnover.

The Knowledge Gap

Marketers need to be absolute experts on consumer behaviours and trends and hyper-aware of the competitive landscape. The relentless, ever-changing media and communication landscape adds to this challenge. Despite having access to advanced analytics and insights, marketers often lack the bandwidth or skill set to fully understand the holistic world their customers live in. A McKinsey report highlights that only 42.1% of organisations use marketing analytics effectively for decision-making⁴.

The Need for Dynamic and Adaptable Strategy

Producing a visionary strategy today requires it to be both dynamic and adaptable. Without responsibility and control over execution, marketers lack the ability to follow through and achieve business goals. This issue is compounded by the fact that many marketing leaders define their roles and teams too narrowly or too broadly. A narrow focus leads to over-reliance on costly third-party agencies, while a broad focus results in significant overlap, multiple handling, and increased costs.

Scope and Team Dynamics

Marketing leaders often define their roles and teams in ways that create immediate biases. A too-narrow role relies heavily on third-party agencies motivated by output rather than successful strategy implementation. Conversely, a too-broad role leads to significant overlap, multiple handling, and increased costs. Marketing teams are currently not empowered to correct cross-functional inefficiencies, causing collaboration mismatches, missed opportunities, and cost blowouts.

What to Do Next

The current construct of marketing departments is not working and is getting worse. Here are some critical next steps to address these challenges:

1. Evaluate Organisational Maturity: Shift from a seller-centric to a customer-growth orientation.
2. Critically Evaluate the Marketing Team: Match the team to global best practice organizational design and evaluate disruptive technologies, including AI, to determine tasks and roles.
3. Reorganise Support Organisations: Align creative, media, and strategy teams, and base remuneration on achievement, not just output.
4. Recast Marketing Value: Empower marketing to run growth programs and foster cross-functional collaboration.
5. Empower Marketing with a Strategic Growth Plan: Ensure the plan is dynamic and adaptable to rapid shifts in culture and customer behaviour.

By addressing these issues and implementing these steps, marketing departments can reclaim their role as growth drivers and adapt to the rapidly changing business environment.

Supporting Data and Statistics

• Perception of Marketing: 55% of leaders believe marketing has an inflated view of its importance⁵.
• Collaboration Drag: 66% of leaders report high ‘collaboration drag’ across major projects⁵.
• CEO Expectations: 75% of CEOs look to CMOs for their business growth strategy⁵.
• Impact of AI: AI is expected to significantly impact marketing, providing a pivotal moment to adjust and create a marketing team that delivers growth⁶.

Would you like to explore more about any specific aspect of this transformation?