"If you're a new chief marketing officer, you probably don't have time to read this," began a recent Advertising Age article reporting the results of the 2006 survey of chief marketing officer (CMO) tenure from global executive search firm Spencer Stuart. The company discovered that the average tenure of a CMO at the top 100 branded firms has consistently declined since it began studying the subject in 2004. "The 23.6 we saw in year one [of the study], we thought was going to be a fluke," explained Spencer Stuart's CMO practice leader Greg Welch. "This year, we were a bit surprised to see it take a dip." CMO tenure has gone from 23.6 months in 2004, to 23.5 months in 2005, to 23.2 months in 2006. Considering that the average tenure of a CEO is 7.9 years, the CIO is 3 years, and even the CFO—what Forbes Magazine has labeled "the worst job in America" because the position bears the brunt of shareholder and Wall Street frustrations—is higher at 30 months, 23.2 months stands out as an especially short period of time.

Many have offered various explanations for why CMOs rarely celebrate a second anniversary at a company. Ad Age reckons the changing media landscape and poor access to CEOs are the leading causes of job insecurity. Businessweek's marketing editor David Kiley went even further, writing in his blog"Brand New Day," "part of the problem with the CMO position is that some companies have created the title out of a sense of fashion. Creating the title all by itself communicates to the world, goes the theory, that you are a company serious about marketing. Talk and titles are cheap, though. Until the CMO job is viewed as a legitimate road to the CEO's office, it will be a step-child position," and one with a revolving door.

Certainly, the level of importance an organization puts on marketing as reflected in CEO access and growth opportunities in upper management has an immense impact on the ability of the CMO to do his or her job effectively. In a recent study of marketing executives at American companies, Copernicus and Brandweek found some evidence to support the contention that many companies have stacked the deck against CMOs. As part of the survey, 250+ marketers with 7+ years of experience from a cross-section of industries were asked a series of questions to gauge their attitudes and opinions about the role of marketing versus sales in their respective organizations. About half of the marketers in the study reported that, by and large, their organizations are sales-oriented rather than marketing-oriented, just under a third say they are the opposite, with the rest neither more sales- nor marketing-oriented. Between sales and marketing, half say more CEOs come from sales and over a third also reported that sales people get more respect than the marketing folks in their respective organizations.

Summary Table
Marketer's Perceptions of Organization's Attitudes Towards Marketing

Source: Copernicus and Brandweek Study of American Marketers

What these results tell us is that if you are a new chief marketing officer coming into a company, there's a pretty good chance that you're inheriting a marketing organization suffering from serious feelings of anomie. If these feelings are the result of general organizational attitudes about what it is you do for a living, you're at an even bigger disadvantage. Add-in the typical brand issues of encroaching competition, category commoditization, and flailing advertising, and 23.2 months starts sounding like an unbelievably long time to be in a job with these headaches.

Still, our research uncovered a far more troubling issue with serious implications for CMO longevity. Less than 50% said that within their organization there's general recognition that marketing drives sales and a third of marketers indicated that the sales function in their companies, not marketing, was most responsible for annual growth. Now these are senior level marketers—directors, VPs, SVPs, EVPs, CMOs, and presidents—the very people who should know better than anyone else that marketing is the only business discipline charged with getting and keeping customers, thereby generating increased sales and growth. They are most predisposed to be pro-marketing in the responses to these questions, so the fact that not even half say that there's a belief that marketing drives sales at their companies and a third still believe that the sales department is responsible for growth rattles us. This would be like asking all the doctors in a hospital if the practice of medicine makes people feel better or if the accounting department heals the sick and getting similar answers. If the very people charged with dispensing marketing at a company don't themselves believe in the critical nature of what they are doing, is it any wonder they might be considered dispensable?

If a CMO doesn't think that marketing drives sales or is the engine of growth at their firms, he or she will have a hard time, to say the least, changing the very organizational attitudes that contribute to high turnover in marketing's top ranks.

Summary Table
Marketers Perceptions of Role of Marketing

Source: Copernicus and Brandweek Study of American Marketers

Race relations, women in society, gay rights, government spending, extra-marital sex, the legalization of marijuana—these are some of the most controversial subject areas that have spurred both public and private debate for decades. Whether hashed out in the political or social arena, Americans have discussed the societal impact of, for example, interracial marriage, women in the workforce, and gays teaching in public schools, taking sometimes staunch positions on these different social issues. Yet while the subject matter has endured, we wondered if and how opinions may have changed as time has gone by.

We compared data from the University of Chicago's National Opinion Research Center's General Social Survey of Americans 18-years and older in 1972, 1987, 2002. Each year, in addition to collecting general demographic (i.e., age, number of years of education, etc.) and behavioral information (i.e., the number of times you read a newspaper each week, the number of hours a day you watch TV, etc.), the survey asked a national probability sample of approximately 1500-2000 people about their attitudes on a variety of issues

We discovered that American opinions on many of the social issues of the day have become more liberal over time. Age-old biases about race, gender, and sexual orientation are on the wane, at least on paper. In 1972, for instance, 71% of the population agreed with the statement, "Blacks should not push themselves where they are not wanted," but by 2002, the number had dropped dramatically to 38%. Making a female presidential candidate appear more likely, the number of Americans who agree that "women are not as well-suited for politics as men," dropped from about half the population to a little under a quarter (48% in 1972 vs. 23% in 2002) during the same time period. A majority of Americans believed freedom of speech should be limited for gays in 1972, but thirty years later it has become a minority view (59% vs. 29%).

Attitudes about government spending on different areas have also changed in some interesting directions. Even with the triumph of the first lunar landing just three years prior, 62% of Americans said the government should spend less on the space program in 1972. With the Challenger disaster occurring only the year prior, we would have expected to see a similar response fifteen years later in 1987, but instead only 39% wanted to spend less on the space program, and in 2002, 38% said the government should spend less. If politicians wonder if Americans want further cuts to welfare these days, the number looking to spend less has dropped dramatically from 50% in 1972 to 25% in 1987, and to 23% in 2002. Perhaps because problems such as poverty, drugs and violence, and public corruption have spread from urban centers into suburban and even rural areas over the course of the last three decades, support for spending less on "big city" problems has increased, from 12% in 1972 to 27% in 1987 and 2002.

Another notable discovery is American attitudes towards pre- and extra-marital sex. Though the number who agree that "premarital sex is always wrong" has dropped significantly from 51% in 1972 to 36% in 2002 reflecting the more liberal trend we see on other social issues, more Americans than ever agree that "extra-marital sex is always wrong." In 1972, 82% held this view, and by 2002, 91% did.

Here are some additional highlights of our longitudinal comparison:

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For more insightful marketing discoveries, visit http://www.copernicusmarketing.com/discover/index.htm

Have a hot discovery for our next release? Contact us at info@copernicusmarketing.com

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Treasure Hunt: Inside the Mind of the New Consumer
By Michael J. Silverstein and John Butman (Portfolio Hardcover, May 4, 2006)

In a recent article, The Economist highlighted two trends "that appear to be, at first glance, at odds with each other. These are the tendencies for consumers to be more cost-conscious; but simultaneously more willing to splurge money on luxury items." Until the 1990s, according to the magazine, spending power directly translated into shopping choices—the rich bought luxury items, the middle-classed bought mid-priced, and the poor bought cheap. These days, however, the middle classes are more likely to go up or down market than stick to the middle.

Or so says Boston Consulting Group partner Michael Silverstein. In his previous book, Trading Up, Silverstein described the idea of "affordable luxury" and the success Starbucks, Coach, and other brands have had getting middle-class buyers to "trade-up" and treat themselves to a product or service with all the trappings of a luxury good save for the price. In Treasure Hunt, he and Butman work in the other direction, describing how the same middle class buyers are simultaneously bargain hunting in other categories. Full of case studies, the book explains how companies can and have successfully adapted to this trend.

Market New Products Successfully Using Simulated Test Marketing Technology
By Kevin Clancy and Peter C. Krieg (Lexington Books, October 2005)

Innovation remains an arduous and painful process for many companies, doing untold damage to brands, profitability, and careers. Some have used line extensions to mitigate risk, but all too often they have ended up extending the core brand into oblivion. Others have used test markets to help gauge opinion before a national rollout, only to have competitors snatch ideas and undermine results. Given the problems with conventional approaches, it's not surprising that 90% of new products and services fail.

Enter Market New Products Successfully, the definitive guidebook for using simulated test marketing (STM), a technology that can help companies dramatically improve the odds of introducing a successful new product or service. The book examines why STM is important, what the differences are between the major systems, how to do a simulation, and what insights it offers a marketing plan. Every marketer wants to improve the financial outcome of the innovation process and Market New Products Successfully shows how marketing science tools can make this possible.

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The DTC in the New Era-Uncertainty & Innovation Conference has one of the most compelling agendas we've seen this year on the topic of advertising pharmaceuticals to consumers. The conference will take place on October 25-26, 2006, at the Parsippany Sheraton in Parsippany, New Jersey. You can read more about the conference at http://www.dtcevents.com/.

Return on investment, the potential impact of legislation on DTC, and how pharmaceutical marketers are using new media options are among the critical issues on conference agenda. Copernicus' own Kevin Clancy will give a presentation on, "DTC ROI—How to Avoid Blowing $38 Million" on October 25 at 1:45 pm-2:15 pm, during which he'll share Copernicus' current findings on DTC program effectiveness and offer recommendations for how marketers can improve campaign performance.

For registration information, visit https://www.dtcnational.com/register/register_fall.asp.

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