The following is a guest article written by Denise Dahlhoff, Director of Research, Marketing, and Communications at The Conference Board. The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author.

Does marketing itself have a 'marketing problem'?

At a time when growth targets are increasingly aggressive, AI transformation is accelerating, and customer journeys are becoming more complex and difficult to track, marketing departments are showing signs of internal marketing failure.

Among Fortune 500 executives, CMOs (Chief Marketing Officers) have one of the shortest tenures: averaging only 4.3 years in 2024, compared to the C-suite average of 4.9 years. This may reflect a misalignment between CMOs and CEOs. This misalignment has a significant impact on resource allocation. The Conference Board's CMO-CCO surveys consistently show that fewer than half of CMOs believe their budgets are sufficient to support enhancing marketing's impact on the business over the next six months.

The problem is compounded by title confusion and fragmented functions. Across different companies, the actual responsibilities of the most senior marketing executive vary greatly, but the title may be the same: 'Chief Marketing Officer' remains a common title, but its scope of responsibilities can differ significantly across organizations. This raises the question: Do CMOs need a new title? Although there is currently no universally applicable alternative. The diversity of responsibilities has given rise to broader titles such as Chief Growth Officer or Chief Commercial Officer, as well as more specialized titles like Chief Brand Officer, Chief Digital Officer, or Chief Customer Experience Officer.

A third concern: marketing sometimes has a poor internal reputation. One marketing executive noted in an interview that marketing appears 'arrogant' in the eyes of colleagues and key decision-makers.

Why does this matter?

When marketing's mission and value are unclear, the function may be overlooked or undervalued by colleagues and even the executive team. This not only affects its image but also impacts budgets, reporting lines, scope of responsibilities, and strategic influence.

Avoiding these negative consequences is enough to prompt organizations to gain a deeper understanding of marketing's capabilities and contributions—even if it requires extra effort. But this is not achieved through a mere communication campaign; it requires shifting marketing's internal operating strategy to position it as a collaborative, critical business function.

In our research, one marketing executive commented: 'Marketing has to explain itself to the organization, while other departments do not, which seems unfair. Moreover, marketing already carries too much work.' However, when marketing's internal standing improves, its external performance is also more likely to improve.

Behind marketing's misunderstanding

Several factors contribute to marketing being undervalued:

  • Marketing is often seen as a 'black box,' sometimes even to the executive level. People may see marketing budgets and visible work (such as ads or social media posts), but they do not see the strategic analysis and planning behind them.
  • Despite abundant data, measuring marketing impact remains challenging. Linking purchases to specific marketing activities (especially long-term brand building) is difficult because customer journeys are complex, and touchpoints are often invisible and difficult to track.
  • Ambiguous scope of responsibilities: Marketing's role varies greatly across organizations. At the same time, its responsibilities have expanded, while some tasks from the traditional 4Ps (Product, Price, Promotion, Place) have shifted to other functions. Additionally, the complexity of 'Promotion' and 'Place' has grown exponentially over the past decade.
  • Limited consensus: Many colleagues and even executives lack a marketing background, yet decisions on marketing campaigns, logos, and similar matters often invite organization-wide commentary—a stark contrast to decisions made by the finance department.

What can marketing do?

Improving marketing's internal perception cannot be achieved through explanation alone. Marketing leaders and their teams should consider multiple approaches:

  • Align goals and accountability mechanisms with the CEO. Define marketing's role together with the CEO and clarify boundaries with adjacent teams. Given marketing's dynamic response to market and technological changes, the definition of marketing's role may need regular updates.
  • Collaborate closely with the finance department. The CFO is responsible for communicating financial figures to the CEO and the board. Marketing should agree with the finance team on which marketing-related metrics to track and keep finance informed of marketing initiatives and performance. Additionally, participating in the finance team's planning conversations is helpful, which requires close collaboration.
  • Demonstrate a business orientation, including in the department's name. Marketing metrics such as clicks, impressions, reach, and engagement mean little to non-marketers. Use financially oriented metrics such as pipeline contribution (measured by volume, value, or conversion rate). The challenge of attributing revenue to marketing activities (especially long-term brand building) can be partially addressed by asking customers about purchase influences at appropriate times. Even a rough estimate of marketing's impact on profits is better than having no financial insight. Giving the marketing team a name that emphasizes a growth orientation (e.g., 'Marketing and Business Performance') may be additionally useful.
  • Collaborate with other functions early in projects. Show other departments how to leverage marketing's strategic insights and expertise to achieve more meaningful impact than merely executing pre-designed plans. Cross-functional team collaboration (including finance, sales, strategy, IT, operations, and human resources) is an opportunity to share marketing's strategic and analytical approach, growth orientation, audience targeting expertise, and effective use of data and technology.
  • Help shape corporate strategy through customer and competitive insights. Marketing's short-term focus on lead generation, conversion, and data analysis has, to some extent, lowered its priority on long-term strategic tasks such as customer insights, competitive intelligence, and market understanding. Enhancing marketing's strategic influence can include proposing promising target customers, growth opportunities, and brand positioning recommendations.

Marketers should remember that useful market intelligence contains rich qualitative insights that can complement big data. One marketing executive noted in an interview: 'We have a lot of customer data, including emails and phone numbers, but we do not have their heartbeat or their perceptions.'

Elevating recognition of marketing as a rigorous discipline (requiring education and expertise, like finance or human resources) should be a priority. The increasing prevalence of digitalization and technology (including AI) is an opportunity to change the notion that 'anyone can do marketing.' Emphasize not only practical experience but also educational requirements in analytics, AI, marketing finance, research and insights, and strategy. Placing greater emphasis on certified continuing education, especially in rapidly changing fields, can signal that this is a profession requiring up-to-date expertise.