For decades, students of business have learned the four Ps of marketing – price, promotion, product, and place. While these principles remain valid today, changes brought about by technology, with AI being the most recent to disrupt the business landscape, have encouraged new perspectives on marketing efforts. One such approach is a new version of the five Cs of modern marketing.
Over the past decade and a half, Egon Zehnder, in partnership with McKinsey & Co., has hosted a closed-door event that brings together academics, business leaders, and marketing executives at the Kellogg School of Management. The off-the-record nature of the get-together allows for more candid conversations that touch on the actual day-to-day challenges marketing leaders face.
As uncertainty continues to rule the day, maximizing the CMO’s impact will require a different approach. The result of the discussions is a new take on the five Cs of modern marketing. Instead of company, customer, competition, collaborator, and context (or climate), the updated Cs from Egon Zehnder are: commerciality, courage, creativity, curiosity, and community.
Commerciality
Historically, marketing was often viewed as a cost center for an organization. Before digital marketing enabled the measurement of programs, it was considered a means to build brand awareness.
Brand awareness is critical because people can’t buy what they don’t know exists. Additionally, marketing is a key driver of revenue through performance initiatives. This requires marketing goals to align with business goals. Since the introduction of digital campaign measurement, marketing goals have been somewhat self-serving, perhaps to validate their program spend, and detached from business growth goals. Over the past couple of years, the focus has shifted to creating more accountability in marketing by tying performance to the overall growth of the business.
According to Egon Zehnder, “The strongest CMOs are deeply attuned to the customer. So, positioning marketers as the voice of the customer can be a significant enabler to this commercial accountability and position (and motivate) them to drive business performance and KPIs with shared intent.”
Courage
Over the last five years, the business world has experienced unprecedented uncertainty. A pandemic, global unrest, and the emergence of artificial intelligence have created an environment of risk, and navigating for growth requires courage.
During times of change, new thinking and new approaches are necessary. It is essential to stay connected with consumers and to be willing to take calculated risks. This behavior doesn’t always come naturally to leaders. It may need to be cultivated. “Supportive CEOs and boards are key to creating environments where CMOs, along with other functional leaders, can take such risks.”
Calculated risk-taking should be proactive and continuous. If you wait until a situation is dire, it’s too late. The ability to obtain feedback quickly with most initiatives means you can pivot quickly if the results are not there. Executive teams should create an environment of ongoing experimentation and agility.
Creativity
With a couple of years of AI under our belt, we have enough understanding to see where the benefits are and where there is just hype. For all the productivity gains AI provides, it is not at a point where it can challenge human creativity.
When it comes to human buying behaviors, the unpredictability of how and why we buy is not something AI can decipher. The Large Language Models (LLMs) on which AI offerings are trained are constructed by humans. And we don’t know exactly how to get people to buy, which means we can’t create LLMs with a secret sauce that enables AI to hit the bullseye.
Creativity is how we differentiate products and services through messaging and visuals. Because it is difficult to measure, it’s often overlooked in favor of dashboards and short-term focused performance (demand-gen) programs. However, creativity is a vital element to gaining a strategic advantage.
According to Drexel University Professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences John Kounios, executive leaders need to “make space for creativity and the magic that not looking directly at the problem can play in helping to generate ‘eureka moments’ that provide surprising solutions and ideas.
Curiosity
As Einstein said, “The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing.” Great leaders are often the most curious people in the room. Curiosity helps connect ideas and insights from different aspects of life to business, often referred to as eureka moments. Some traits of curious people include active listening, being well-read, and the ability to connect the dots that others don’t.
Creating time for employees to think, learn, and disconnect from work provides the environment necessary to cultivate curiosity and lateral thinking. “This has proved even more important in a landscape where data literacy and digital understanding is no longer a nice-to-have but a must-have.”
Community
According to Egon Zehnder, building authentic connections with co-workers can be a catalyst for change. With the expanding scope of marketing responsibilities for CMOs, from driving growth to brand stewardship, strong relationships are more important than ever. CMOs need to find or build communities, whether internal or external, to share ideas, discuss best practices, and listen to one another.
“Substantive conversations and insight sharing are ways to spark their own curiosity and creativity as well as find new ways to drive growth. CEOs and boards who encourage their CMOs to stay connected…will reap the benefits of a leader who is more resilient, creative and purposeful.”
The five Cs of modern marketing are a framework to help CMOs navigate a constantly changing landscape. But CMOs need support to succeed. CEOs need to collaborate with CMOs and build consensus across the executive team to provide the right environment for marketing to make meaningful contributions to the organization.
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