• Business Week's Brand New Day, Tuesday, July 14, 2009 10:34 AM

Pete Krainik, founder of The CMO Club, writes that a key factor in the new product successes of companies such as McDonald's, HP, Virgin America, and Wal-Mart is the fact that their CMOs go beyond branding and lead generation and have an active seat at the C-Level table. So, you may ask, how does one go about procuring that seat?

Krainik credits Mark Bonchek, founder of Truman Company, with eliciting three key practices in discussions with leading CMOs over the past few months: 1. Think like a CFO; 2. Speak business, not marketing; 3. Be the voice of your customer.

Krainik spells out examples of all three with down-to-earth advice such as this: To most people in your company, "campaigns are what get politicians elected and marketing mix is a snack with nuts and pretzels you might serve at a party. Drop the marketing jargon ..."

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