Target 2030: Making a difference with marketing

Nando’s, though, decided this was unacceptable. To combat the problem they launched a national campaign — #RightMyName — to remove spellcheck’s unnecessary red line from all non-English local names.

Fast forward a couple of months and more than 70,000 names from across southern Africa had been crowdsourced and entered into a national database which users could download and add to their spellcheck dictionary, thereby removing the red line at a stroke.

Yes, the campaign raised brand awareness but it’s also a great example of how marketing can promote racial and cultural harmony — the kind of societal impact that is likely to become even more prevalent and important in the years ahead.

With consumers increasingly expecting companies to be socially responsible and align with their values, ambitious marketeers eyeing up a chief marketing officer (CMO) role by 2030 need to ensure that their strategies resonate with the public — failure to do so can lead to significant reputational damage. Not to mention more limited career options, too.

Under the influence

Few leadership roles are as influential as the CMO’s. Although a cluster of newer roles like the chief digital and product officers might, on the face of it, appear to minimise its sway, their presence has done little to offset the CMO’s fundamental importance to any organisation.

As we have explored elsewhere, marketing leaders are actually well placed to ascend to the CEO role thanks to their wide medley of experiences and skills ranging from stakeholder engagement to strategic planning, data insights to brand management.

When it comes to strategic innovation, disruption and customer interaction, the CMO — and the marketing function they lead — hold the key to extracting much of the value on offer. Their bird’s eye view across their organisation and market means they are ideally placed to identify new opportunities for growth, collaboration and technological deployment. This means they have the opportunity to make a huge impact on both commerce and society as a whole.

In other words, their sphere of influence is, if anything, growing, not diminishing.

Care for the community

In today’s hyper-competitive marketplace, and with businesses having an ever-greater influence on society, companies need to show they care for the broader community to maintain consumer trust. The more that broader societal issues impact greater numbers of people, the less brands and companies can afford to be tone deaf about these issues.

While much of this is rooted in ensuring consistently excellent customer service, there are a number of other factors to take into account, all of which are directly linked to the CMO. Take widespread concern about sweatshops being used to produce mass market fashion, for example. Companies seen to be exploiting such practices risk a massive reputational hit — it doesn’t matter if the products are of high quality, their controversial provenance matters far more.

At the same time, those brands which focus on ethical behaviours can strengthen customer loyalty, particularly amongst conscientious customers, and thus grow market share in the process. A good example is the outdoor clothing company, Patagonia. While their products have a high price point, they have built up a loyal following in large part due to their commitment to sustainability: 98% of its clothing is made from recycled materials and it donates millions of dollars to environmental causes.

This is further evidence that companies that show they care have a similar impact to leaders who show they care — people, both employees and customers, are drawn to them.

A function in flux

The organisational structure of the function needs to evolve in order to reflect marketing’s evolving responsibilities and the growing importance of societal impact is further accelerating this process.

The CMO needs to ensure that societal impact transcend everything the function does — which makes it more complex than in the past. This includes understanding the broader implications of their marketing strategies — it’s not just about the short term results, what is needed is a full 360° view, from planning to impact to legacy.

This priority is even more pertinent as society braces for the ever-increasing impact of Generative AI. Such is the sheer magnitude of this technology, questions have been asked about whether it will, in time, even kill off the marketing function.

While such an outcome is unlikely, what we can say with some certainty is that generative AI is going to alter the marketing function, with fewer team members being expected to fulfil the same amount of work.

There will be those who oversee the creative output of AI, rather than lots of creative types on the team, and the team generally will become a lot more analytical as data scientists crunch massive amounts of information that inform marketing decisions (again with the support of AI).

This all means that the CMO of 2030 will be a different kind of person because they will have to manage different types of people and technology.

Make it personal

To really understand societal impact, and to be able to truly empathise with people impacted, CMOs and their teams need to spend lots of time outside of the ivory tower and corporate bubble and be actually on the ground where people are being affected.

This can mean walking the streets in the markets where their products are sold, but it could also mean volunteering in those areas where they want their company to be associated with. That way they can genuinely understand what’s happening rather than just having a theoretical view.

Perhaps there needs to be a “pay it forward” mindset from companies. Instead of supporting a cause in order to sell more products now, they must support without any expectation of short term gain, but to build trust over time that leads to future benefit. Related to this, companies should be willing to take a calculated risk and comment on issues that mean something to a broad swathe of society, all of which are potential customers — much like Nando’s did with its spellcheck initiative.

Impact ahead

The CMO of 2030 will need to have a wide array of skills and capabilities to succeed in what is a demanding, testing and changing role. They need to be highly-skilled, ambitious and team players.

But what better way for them to showcase their collective talents than by helping create a more sustainable, inclusive and positive future for society?

Reflections for marketing leaders

• Is there broad support across the C-suite for your organisation to achieve a positive social impact, as well as revenue growth?
• How can you ensure that your organisation’s commercial priorities align with wider social impact goals?
• Does your team possess the necessary experience, capabilities and skills to incorporate social impact as a core marketing priority?