Every CMO Needs to be a Chief Improvisation Officer

A few weeks ago, I attended the Argyle Chief Marketing Officer Leadership Forum in Chicago.

The room was filled with marketing execs from a wide variety of companies and the agenda was packed with content ranging from digital transformation to brand engagement to omnichannel marketing.

We heard from Phil Duncan, Global Design Officer at P&G, talking about how to create emotional connections with customers by putting your brand assets in their hands and giving them a platform to play and share.

Bill Malloy, CMO at Sprint, spoke about the imperatives of breaking through the clutter and attention-deficit disorder running rampant in our multi-screen world by leveraging all the available signals to customize your content.

One of the insights that really spoke to me came from John Stetic, VP of Product Management at Eloqua Oracle. John gave a short presentation on how modern marketing works and pointed to the changing (and challenging) role of the CMO.

In order to successfully build marketing plans and team, John said that every CMO needs to be a Chief Improvisation Officer. Given the constantly changing landscape, CMOs must build a flexible foundation and agile approach. You can’t get too locked in to any one concept and need to push boundaries to continually test and learn.

At Skai, we know it’s not easy being a marketer in today’s digital world. And we know the opportunities for optimization are truly infinite. That’s why we continually strive to deliver meaningful innovation that helps our clients stay ahead of the market and activate their customers.

On a personal level, the idea of a Chief Improvisation Officer definitely resonates with me. I’ve given myself the unofficial title “Head of Freestyle Rap” given my proclivity for busting out rhymes on a dime all the time, it’s a crime!

Freestyle is all about going with the flow and rolling with punches while trying to maintain course and finish what you started – the rhyme, that is. It’s a great metaphor for modern marketing in that you set your goal and then try a little bit of everything to get there. The key is to not let a few bumps in the road (or bunk rhymes) steer you off course.

Over the years, I’ve found ways to go beyond analogies and combine my fondness for freestyle with my marketing madness. From rapping keynote kickoffs to flipping scripts during Q&A, I’ve dropped a few mics on the marketing conference circuit. Here are some of the highlights.

So, to all my fellow Chief Improvisation Officers out there, keep on flowin’ and let me know if you ever want to do battle! Not so fast, Chuck.