The CMO Survey Blog

CMOs on Economic Recovery: A Look at the Long Climb Out

March 20th, 2012

While going through my students’ resumes before class, I read one that listed “stair climbing” as a competitive sport. I had never heard of this, so I looked it up and found a well-established world-wide network of races. You can, for example, climb the Empire State Building and Gran Hotel Bali. Doing well requires strength, sprint, and endurance. If you are really good and perform well in the 100+ races around the world, you could win the Towerrunning World Cup.

All this talk of climbing made me think it would be interesting to plot the economic recovery using data from The CMO Survey. I plotted several key financial metrics as reported by The CMO Survey between August 2009 and February 2012 in Figure 1. What a beautiful sight! Steady and significant improvement over the course of 2.5 years to where we are today. These numbers are in response to the question, “Rate your firm’s performance during the last 12 months.”
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Top Marketers See U.S. Economy on the Rebound

February 28th, 2012

The results from The CMO Survey are in and one fact is very clear: Chief Marketing Officers are overwhelmingly optimistic about the U.S. economy’s outlook. When asked if they were more or less optimistic about the overall U.S. economy compared to last quarter, optimists outweighed pessimists 8 to 1. (more…)

A Fast Boat to China: Notes on Marketing

February 7th, 2012

The CMO Survey reported that China will be the focus of the most dramatic increases in U.S. company sales revenues in international markets during the next 12 months. When asked to list the top three international markets for sales growth, approximately 20% named China. (more…)

Keywords: China, customers, growth, international marketing, The CMO Survey

What Customers Want

December 20th, 2011

The CMO Survey asks top marketers to rank order the following factors in terms of their importance to customers: low price, superior product quality, superior innovation, trusting relationship, excellent service, and brand. The specific question is “For your largest market, rank your customers’ top three priorities over the next 12 months” where 1 is most important. I charted these responses over the last three years to get a sense of how priorities have shifted, especially during these tough economic times. (more…)

Keywords: brand, competition, customers, innovation, marketplace dynamics, price, product quality, recession, service, The CMO Survey, trusting relationship

Economic Downturn and Company Truths

November 30th, 2011

I wrote a book last year entitled Strategy from the Outside In: Profiting from Customer Value. The central premise of the book is that companies are often managed with a focus on priorities other than customers. A range of reasons rooted in “insight-out thinking” include satisfying the stock market, lowering costs, or extracting all the value from existing capabilities. Companies that approach strategy from the outside in begin and end with the customer. In the words of Stephen Haeckel, these companies manage using “sense and respond,” not “make and sell.” (more…)

Keywords: customer information, information acquisition, information sharing, information use, leadership, marketplace dynamics, metrics, recession, Stephen Haeckel, strategy, Strategy from the Outside In

Marketers to Spend Despite Tumultuous August: Smart, Crazy, Saviors?

September 12th, 2011

While the general public can be accused of having short memories, it doesn’t take much for us to remember the volatility the financial markets experienced in the month of August. Standard & Poors’ downgrade of US credit and a tumultuous battle in the US Congress left many frazzled as their stocks moved in various directions. The words “double-dip recession” inundated the headlines and prognosticators’ outlooks. (more…)

Keywords: Chief Marketing Officer, economy, marketing, marketplace dynamics, performance, pessimism, social media, Spending

As CMOs See It: Dramatic Improvements On All Economic Fronts

February 15th, 2011

The results of the February 2011 CMO Survey are in and the news is unequivocally positive. 421 top marketers shared their views to create the following portrait of healthy economy-wide, firm, and job effects. (more…)

Keywords: cmo survey results, consulting inudstry, consulting jobs, customer interactions, economic optimism, financial performance, firm goals, job prospects, marketing performance

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CMOs on Economic Recovery: A Look at the Long Climb Out

Top Marketers See U.S. Economy on the Rebound

A Fast Boat to China: Notes on Marketing

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