AI vs. CMO: Who’s Better at Sticking to a Plan?

The average tenure for a CMO has been falling over the last few years, and at the moment the average is around three years, but we all know that most marketing strategies take time to show results. So can AI help marketers keep on track when the movers move and the shakers shake? big group strategy director, William Hughes starts the conversation.

CMOs have a reputation for being flighty. This view may be a little unfair as Marketing Week showed that the average tenure of a Fortune500 CMO is 4.2 years - not bad. That encouraging stat is tempered by the fact that one in four CMOs of the same sampled companies have been in position for less than 12 months. With leaders dotting around companies, how can they promise, achieve, or celebrate consistency? 

The Importance of Consistency in Marketing

It’s common wisdom that consistency improves marketing. It allows you to build brand assets and trust with your audience. It also has the added benefit of efficiencies in creative and production processes as staff have clarity in what good looks like. A silly example, but valuing consistency over novelty means you can run an advert several years in a row – just as effective but maybe not as attractive for a new CMO trying to come in and stamp their mark. 

Will AI do a Better Job than CMOs?

Current landscape

Many companies are struggling with AI adoption: the steps needed, where to apply it first, how fast to go etc.. Often, their application is down to a handful of evangelists, or the smart execs who have figured out how to complete tasks quicker but outside the guardrails of their IT policy. 

There are massive success stories for AI. Klarna’s rapid adoption of tools for customer service and creative processes has already saved 37% in costs. “Klarna has started to use AI for ideation, image creation and translation efforts to create more personalised campaigns for consumers across its 45 markets” (source). Results like this will mean more marketing teams will either choose or be quietly encouraged to find impactful uses for AI throughout their teams and ways and working. 

The next year will see an acceleration of companies looking for their own solutions. In this space, I believe there are two possible futures for how AI will impact consistency. 

The Negative Scenario

Focus on Scale and Efficiency

• AI will be created and sold predominantly as a solution for creating scale and efficiency over the next 12 months.
• These selling points will shape foundational development cycles, prioritising these features over consistency and repeatability.

Decline in Creativity

• The fixation with scale could lead to a decline in creative problem-solving, which has been core to the industry’s identity.
• CMOs will be measured on how quickly they can deploy bigger and more personalised campaigns through AI and reduce third-party expenditure.

Loss of Brand Personality

• The race for scale means we risk becoming so personalised that our brands don’t have a distinct personality.
• Agencies supporting brands may realise too late that they’ve overvalued scale and efficiency, blurring their propositions with consultants and tech providers, making it harder to differentiate.

The Positive Scenario

Guardrails for building brand assets

• AI systems will be designed to increase scale and efficiency, but also to safeguard integral parts of a brand’s identity and long-term business strategy – it won’t be either/or.
• Our industry's concern about the lack of consistency will translate into action, creating tools that address gaps left by senior leaders moving roles regularly.

Insight creation

• The are few cost-effective ways to dig through data for insights. The efficiency new tools provide will allow more time for insight-led marketing to be created
• We will know more about our campaigns and be able to value the effective parts more easily meaning we can repeat them

Empowered CMOs

• New CMOs will be empowered to embrace their role as fresh eyes and agitators, knowing that AI guardrails will help challenge decisions that could erode brand value.
• Agencies will ensure their brand partners consider the full ramifications of AI rollouts while evolving how they work to remain valuable.

Scale ≯ Creativity

• As systems are built to highlight the value in both efficiency and creative consistency, a new generation of marketers will have a more rounded experience of the role
• Their improved skills will improve the reputation of the discipline within business

At this moment in time, there is enormous opportunity but also substantial risk. Countless high quality AI products will be built and introduced to businesses; this is a certainty. My hope is that the people at the top of our industry are not too single-minded about the type of tools they require to grow their business.

If I had one wish related to this topic it would be for CMOs (with the help of their agencies) to leave their teams, processes, and creative cultures in a better position than when they arrived. Not just through their knowledge and leadership but by creating tools and AI frameworks that put greater value on defining and sticking to what’s working. [LB4] 

AI will not inherently be better at making our marketing and branding more consistent unless leadership teams train their tools that it is valued by the organisation. The great advantage is that once they are trained you know they are not going to act with emotion or to be self-serving – the CMO will never beat AI on that front.

The good news is that some things don’t change. It will come down to us humans to set the strategy and vision for teams (and now tools) to follow. This is a period of reinvention for everyone in marketing. Old problems will be fixed by new technologies, but only by people willing to redefine how their value is judged.