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CEOs need to start taking ownership of their company's story, and stop passing the buck to marketing.
Key excerpt...
The vast majority of CEOs aren't taking the time to understand their story and how it relates to their products. Instead, they are continuing to separate product from story, and pushing responsibility for story down to the marketing department. By doing this, they are giving their CMOs an impossible job — marshall a story that is unfolding across the entire enterprise — product development and customer service — areas that most CMO's don't touch or can't control. Yet they are still holding the CMO responsible for results. No wonder the qualities sought in a CMO these days might be mistaken for those of a bullfighter or a test pilot. CEOs who stick with this model will struggle to keep the best marketing talent over the coming years, as more enlightened competitors poach the most ambitious marketing stars and empower them to quarterback the story across the whole organization.
It could be one reason why CMO tenures are relatively short. But I think the root of the short tenure has been the historical lack of measurability associated with actions taken by the CMO. However, with the advent of marketing technology, analytics and measurements directly related to objectives are proof points that will elongate the tenure of the CMO.