Help CMO evaluate the state of Australia’s marketing leadership: Please complete this important survey

Click here to complete the survey  

Just how are Australian CMOs faring as we embrace a third year of living with the global pandemic? How have these macro trends impacted the strategic and executive standing of marketing leaders? What technologies and in-house functional skills are marketers investing in right now? And how are marketing functions really doing when it comes to resiliency, adaptability and commercial acumen?

These are just a few of the questions CMO is hoping to answer through this year’s State of the CMO research survey, brought to you by Optimizely. And we need Australian marketing leaders to chip in their views in order to do it.

We’re asking Australia’s senior marketing fraternity to please complete this important research survey so we can understand how the role of the marketing leader and remit continues to evolve.  

Now in its sixth year, State of the CMO provides an annual benchmark in terms of the CMO position and marketing function. To do this, we look at leadership responsibility, salary, tenure, technology purchasing and utilisation, CX ownership, business and executive priorities, data utilisation and more.  

It proved a particularly important source of insight in 2021 as we explored the ongoing challenges of marketing during the pandemic. A key finding was that perceptions of resiliency and adaptability are higher than ever across Australia’s marketing leadership fraternity. Nine out of 10 marketers rated their resiliency a 4 or 5 out of 5, and 51 per cent give their adaptability prowess full marks. Across the board, leadership scores are up year-on-year including commercial acumen, which more than one-third of CMOs rate as a five out of five.

Marketing budgets also weren’t as bad as you’d think. Just shy of half of State of the CMO 2021 respondents have seen marketing budgets increase compared to pre-Covid levels (48%). One in five say budgets remain the same, while just over one in four saw some decline. The primary way of approaching the marketing budget is rolling year-on-year (37%), followed by activity or program-based (34%),

Yet the stature of marketing as a business leader and partner had declined since the early months of rapid customer and product innovation in the Covid-19 global pandemic. During the height of Covid, 42 per cent of CMOs claimed to be perceived as business leaders, but this had dropped by 10 per cent in the 2021 findings.

So what does the CMO role and remit look like as we reset the dial to sustainable growth? Are marketers once more leading the way? Or do challenges around their influence persists?

To find this out, we need your help. Fill in this year’s State of the CMO survey and you’ll also have the opportunity to win a $500 RedBalloon experience voucher. The first 25 respondents will also receive a complimentary ticket to our CMO Momentum conference in August 2022. And all participants receive a courtesy whitepaper PDF of the full report.

Click here to complete the survey  

The survey takes approximately 15 minutes to complete. Responses must be submitted by 29 April 2022. 

All responses are kept strictly confidential, results are used in aggregate and contact details are not kept. CMO strongly encourages you to share your thoughts today. To see the full terms and conditions of this survey, please click here.  

And if you’d like to check out our 2021 edition and valuable findings, you can download the State of the CMO 2021 whitepaper here.  

This article was contributed by Nadia Cameron, Publisher and Editor at CMO.