• Forbes, Wednesday, March 24, 2010 10:27 AM

Former McDonald's CMO and longtime industry consultant Larry Light challenges his fellow marketers to redefine marketing in the age of consumer frugality lest it continue its death-spiral from a profession to "the trade of managing and executing marketing communications."

Light says that CMOs' roles are being trivialized into coordinating, mediating and arbitrating among factions and channels within the organization. But brand management is about "the enduring, profitable growth of the business" and that means that CMOs must take leadership in helping to define growth strategy, aligning the organization behind a common brand-business purpose and direction, leading innovation and other customer-centric tasks.

"Marketing is the common thread that crosses all functions, all geographies and all organizational levels," he writes. "In particular, the CMO serves as the internal voice of the customer, the keeper of the customer's wants and needs." But, he warns, CMOs' influence will continue to decline unless practitioners get behind transforming the role from marketing communications leader to brand-business leader.

Read the whole story at Forbes »