CMO Agenda

Marketing and Sales

The digitization of the customer experience is unlocking fresh opportunities for chief marketing officers while also creating new challenges. Our expertise across the CMO agenda—coupled with our experience guiding the C-suite—helps marketing executives navigate their evolving roles.

As customers become more discerning, digitally savvy, and purpose-led, the chief marketing officer role is fast becoming more complex. Customers have high expectations for richer, more nuanced experiences. CMOs are on the hook to deliver—even as budget, staffing, and other constraints continue to tighten. Our CMO consulting experts help marketing executives master a blend of alchemy and analytics—from creativity, collaboration, and purpose to AI, measurement, and technology—so they can balance these demands and grow their influence.

How We Support the CMO

Our industry-leading digital expertise helps address the full spectrum of CMO challenges, from the creative to the highly technical. We bring:

Keen vision across, and comprehensive knowledge of, the marketing function, including digital and traditional channels, purpose, creative, analytics and AI, agile marketing, customer acquisition strategies, and business innovation
Growth-oriented measurement models and approaches to accelerate funding for innovative marketing approaches
A deep understanding of CMOs’ relationships with the C-suite and board of directors, which enables them to collaborate more effectively with executives and advisors in other disciplines
Optimized ways of working to enable marketing agility, adaptability, and a results-oriented focus—within and across teams
Diverse practitioners who work shoulder to shoulder with marketing executives and their teams throughout the engagement to achieve CMO priorities and unite strategy with value

Our CMO consulting experts support chief marketing officers in their efforts to develop a coordinated and action-oriented CMO agenda that balances often-competing priorities to drive impact.

The New CMO Strategy: Collaboration

To thrive in their roles, marketing executives must translate their skills and expertise across the C-suite. CMOs and CIOs, for example, can unlock budgets and enhance investments in marketing talent, tools, and technology. CMOs and CEOs can work together to embed and nurture purpose across an organization while cementing loyalty among its customers. CMOs and COOs can build the systems and processes that support market leadership. CMOs and CFOs can collaborate to manage marketing as an investment for increasing returns.We help CMOs foster C-suite collaboration—and establish a shared view of measurement that aligns marketing with business impact—so they can shift perceptions of the marketing organization from a cost center to a growth platform.

Our solution rests on five pillars that support CMO marketing strategy. They are:

Set a Customer-Centric Vision and Strategy

Develop Technical Foundations and a Measurement Toolkit

Deliver and Scale Relevant Customer Experiences

Empower People Through Agile Processes and Foster Digital Talent

Build an Industry-Leading Content Machine to Break Through with Consumers

Explore Our Insights for Chief Marketing Officers

BCG at Cannes Lions

We joined CMOs and marketing and creative leaders from around the world at the 2023 Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. As an official partner of Cannes Lions, we were on the ground to offer insights and ideas on navigating the complex world of marketing and transforming challenges into opportunities.

Explore our insights

How Will Generative AI Shape the Future of Marketing?

Generative AI is revolutionizing marketing by streamlining creativity and making hyper-personalized content possible at scale. BCG's CMO Jessica Apotheker explains what’s possible, right now, with generative AI–and how to get started.

How CMOs Can Team with CFOs on Strategic Investments

Alignment between CMOs and CFOs is critical during turbulent times. A shared view of how to prioritize branding and media investments, and how to measure them, can bring a new level of certainty to the C-suite.

Capturing Mind Share with Precision Branding

Marketers need to know if a campaign is working now, not several months from now. First-Fast Response, BCG’s precision-branding metric, drives impact by delivering fast, targeted insights.

How CMOs Are Succeeding with Generative AI

GenAI technology is already enhancing marketing efficiency and productivity. Managed responsibly, it can positively reshape the role and influence of the CMO.

See more of our insights for CMOS

Exclusive Download

The Future Is Mainstream Green: Introducing a New Growth Strategy

This is a guide for chief marketing officers to take green beyond niche and into the mainstream. Mainstream Green is about driving sustainable choices by all consumers, not just those who are moved by sustainable claims. To reach our collective climate ambitions, we need massive consumer change—a widespread embrace of new products, new services, new marketing, and new behaviors.

CMOs are well positioned to drive customer-centric change because they understand consumers’ concerns and aspirations and have a platform within companies to make change happen. By following this guide, CMOs can take practical steps toward helping us get to Mainstream Green.