• by John Ellett , May 12, 2015

Today’s CMOs are more challenged than they’ve ever been. In my work, I get to hear about the challenges transformational marketing leaders face and the frustrations they deal with in their roles as change agents for their organizations, not the least of which is their agencies’ inability to partner effectively with them on their journeys to becoming modern marketers. Here are three of the most common gripes I hear:

1. “My agencies are stuck in the past”: Many agency business models have been fueled by creating commercials for broadcast television, and their DNA is rooted in that way of thinking. Ideas are expressed as 30-second spots. Despite much prognostication that “TV is dead,” there is still a vibrant role for broadcast in the marketing mix, which means that agencies still making a living under this model aren’t being forced to change their DNA. For more progressive CMOs, this is a major source of frustration. These leaders know that their potential customers’ decision journeys are being influenced by other customers’ opinions and by branded content, yet their lead agencies are not developing “big ideas” with that knowledge in mind.
2. “My agencies are siloed in their thinking”: This problem stems from the first gripe and is compounded by the CMO’s own organization, which is often structured around communications channels. Each of the channel owners has his specialty agency that is then compensated to stay within its designated sandbox. However, customers are looking for seamless cross-channel experiences. Some companies have developed strong cross-agency collaboration, but they are in the minority. Many agencies simply have egos not well suited for being members of a multi-agency team, and this creates headaches for CMOs who desperately want highly functional virtual teams and better customer experiences.

3. “My agencies are too slow”: The speed of business today is fast, and CMOs are working actively to develop more agile organizations that have the capability to plan and execute in much faster cycles. They want to get real-time market feedback and to adapt their programs according to the insights they are deriving every day. The agency campaign development cycle was built around the traditional model of flighted campaigns that could be set into motion and left to run without change for three to six months at a time. Today, CMOs want much faster test-learn-adapt cycles that can occur in weeks if not days. Most large agencies are not built for this level of agility, which ultimately inhibits the marketer’s ability to move quickly.

What should marketing leaders do to overcome these headaches? 

First, they should accept ownership for perpetuating siloed thinking and fragmented experiences. As I work with CMOs who have taken this step, we often find ways to design new models for omni-channel planning and orchestration. This can be energizing for their teams who realize that they can be more effective in a highly collaborative customer-centered environment.

Second, they can change the expectations for their agency partners and model the expected behavior. Conducting simultaneous briefings, sharing business results, using common project management tools and celebrating successes together as an extended team will go a long way to bridging the silos.

Finally, CMOs should consider creating integrated project teams supported by flexible multi-disciplinary agency partners who can model agile marketing for the rest of the organization. By creating a team with the mandate, capability and autonomy to experiment quickly, large companies may learn how to operate at today’s speed of business.