CMOs come in 3 flavors: Creative Iconoclasts, Professional General Managers, and Digital Wizards

CMOs come in 3 flavors:

1 - Creative Iconoclasts (idea-centric - e.g. Don Draper)
2 - Professional General Managers (business-centric - e.g. P&G type)
3 - Digital Wizards (digital marketing & data/analytics-centric)

CEOs want all 3 (who doesn't?), but CMOs who excel in all 3 areas don't really exist. Most CMOs are a combination of 2 of them.

Instead of looking for the "Purple Squirrel" (something you can describe perfectly, but does not exist in nature, or in marketing), try this:

First, decide what your business really needs.

Then, search for the flavor of CMO you need most to achieve it.

As the CMO role continues to evolve, CMOs are becoming:
- More data and insights-driven
- More involved in the customer experience
- More committed to Customer Lifetime Value (LTV)

Over the next 5 years, they have become even more sophisticated and holistic in how they approach marketing.

The expectations of a CMO are generally poorly defined and ever-changing.

If you're a CEO and you know you need to hire a CMO, but you're unsure which flavor of CMO you need, the lowest risk move is to hire a Fractional/Interim CMO while you search for your perfect fit, or you may find that a Fractional CMO IS your perfect fit.

With CMOs in all 3 flavors across a variety of industries, the CMO Syndicate can be your Purple Squirrel.

About The CMO Syndicate

The CMO Syndicate is a diverse group of world-class Chief Marketing Officers who rapidly solve growth and profit problems for CEOs, VCs, CMOs, and PE firms. As global CMOs from the world’s top companies, The CMO Syndicate is not a traditional marketing consulting agency, and we are not typical marketing or growth consultants. We are growth experts and operators who actually do the work on a part-time or project basis as outsourced fractional and interim CMOs.