Is marketing actually a creative career, or is it just about tech now? Research released today has found that 92% of CMOs admit they’d have chosen a different career than marketing if they had known how tech-heavy the job would be.
This rises to every single one (100%) of the experienced, world-weary CMOs who’ve been in their current role for between three and six years. This represents a talent crisis, suggesting the industry is losing its most experienced leaders to operational burnout.
The study also highlighted that on average, around half (45%) of the marketing team now has a largely or completely tech-facing role dealing with the organisation’s martech stack.
The survey was carried out by marketing optimisation and transformation specialists Intermedia Global (IMG). It canvassed 250 UK C-Suite professionals with responsibility for marketing technology in mid-sized enterprises with annual revenues between £100m and £500m.
Karla Wentworth, CSO of IMG, comments: “No-one got into marketing because they wanted to work in tech support. And yet, that’s where we are now. The martech stack is king, and creativity and corporate strategy are in second place at best.
“With more than 15,000 different tools now available to marketers, including the addition of AI platforms in recent years, technology has become so confusing and complex that it’s no wonder it’s taking up all the marketing team’s time. Does tool A talk to tool B? Can a creaking legacy tech stack handle sophisticated AI functionality? Whose job is it to fix it when something goes wrong? Does each country or region within the business have its own martech stack?
“It’s often a nightmare. The Marketing Experience (MX) of how marketers work with their tech tools and try to reduce friction has become fraught with risk. It’s no wonder that CMOs burn out and keep moving roles. They’re crying out for help in dealing with their tech so they can actually do marketing again.”
According to the survey, the CMO is the most likely role to have responsibility for the martech stack, even over the CFO or the CIO/CTO. In fact, almost twice as likely – in 35% of organisations it’s down to the head of marketing, ahead of 19% where the stack ‘belongs’ to the head of finance. In only 18% is it the head of IT’s job.
And similarly, the CMO has the most influence on decisions about adopting new marketing technology in the organisation: 30%, compared to 25% of businesses where the main driver is the finance/procurement team or CIO/CTO.
Karla Wentworth adds: “Thanks to the profusion of martech, marketing departments now often have more tech experts than actual marketers. That’s not exactly conducive to great creative campaigns that seize the imaginations and emotions of audiences.
“Businesses understand the importance of their martech, because it’s the technology that their customers see in action. But the fact that everything often comes under the CMO’s purview can be self-defeating in the long run. Some CMOs are unquestionably tech experts, but many aren’t – and even those who are experts need free time to focus on marketing strategy.”
