MARKETING THE CMO SURVEY
The CMO Survey, sponsored by Deloitte, the American Marketing Association, and Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business. They show that marketer optimism has risen, despite the ongoing economic challenges – and that AI and digital transformation could be key to marketing success over the coming year. Here are six key insights from the survey.
Transforming marketing Recession fears have faded but with modest growth forecast for the US economy in the year ahead, can AI and digital transformation help marketers raise their game? Writing Patrick Woodman
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Marketer optimism has risen while marketing spend dampens As recession concerns have faded, marketers’ optimism about the US economy has increased to 66.7 on a 100-point scale, up from 57.7 a year ago. Almost half (49%) of marketers report that they are more optimistic about the economy than they were last quarter, up from 30.1% in the spring 2023 survey. Yet inflation and its attendant uncertainty continues to have a dampening effect on marketing spending, particularly for B2B products. Overall, marketing budget as a percentage of company budget dropped to 10.6% from 12.3% in the spring 2023 survey.
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Marketing performance strengthens Christine Moorman, professor at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business and the director of The CMO Survey, notes that “marketing optimism may, in part, be buoyed by marketing performance, which remains strong relative to the pandemic”. Reported profit growth has strengthened to 8%, from 5.6% last year. Company sales growth, while slowing, remains positive at 10.8% and well above its pandemic low of 2.6%. Customer retention, customer acquisition, and brand value also increased, with brand value increasing dramatically from 6.3% growth last year to 9.7%.
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Diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) in marketing drops off One of the most striking findings of the most recent edition of The CMO Survey is how DEI initiatives have decelerated. Marketing leaders report growth in DEI spend slowing to 2.3% this year, down from 10.7% just a year ago. Fewer marketers expect DEI to be a marketing priority over the next five years: less than half (41.4%) believe it will be prioritized, compared to 58.7% in August 2021. “One reason for this is that DEI marketing investments are viewed as having weak returns,” says Moorman. Marketers report that the effects of DEI marketing investments are weaker than a year ago across multiple metrics, including stock returns (rated 1.8 on a scale from 1, ‘not at all’,
ne year ago, we asked how marketing might fare if the US economy plunged into recession (Christine Moorman, ‘The drive for value’, Dialogue Q1 2023). That scenario has been avoided, with the economy tracking toward growth of 2.1% in 2023 – yet it has not all been smooth sailing. Inflation, and consequent high interest rates, have had a major impact on many businesses, as well as on households. How, then, have marketers responded? And with the Federal Reserve forecasting weaker growth of 1.5% in the US economy in 2024, what might we anticipate for marketing in the year ahead? Some light is shed on those questions by the results of the Fall 2023 edition of 72
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26/10/2023 09:28