-: Certainly right now, the times are so uncertain.
There's so much lack of clarity
about what's going to be occurring in the next six months,
12 months, that, you know, a lot of CMOs
are having discussions with their counterparts--
CFOs, CEOs -- about how they can contribute
to growth in the long term even though
there's so much pressure right now
to be able to make investments;
make investments in media, make investments in talent.
So the most successful CMOs we have seen in prior downturns
are those that can actually articulate
what's the way in which you can use this
as an opportunity to get ahead of competitors.
How can you grow share?
How can you double down in places confidently
even though there's so much pressure from investors
and from C-suite counterparts to maybe pull back
in some places.
So I think a few things, one is CMOs
that can collaborate well,
that are coordinating across the C-suite
and being able to communicate internally and externally
to board and to customer constituents.
Those are the ones that are really going to do really well,
both them personally and the companies they're working with.
That's one area where we have also found
that working together in a collaborative way,
not only with marketers, but also with sales, web,
omnichannel commercial leaders together
on some of these digital transformation topics.
Now is a great time to be doing that
because the collaboration that requires and that forces
is actually the kinds of prerequisites for actually
making that step and making that kind of bold choice
to move ahead of the competitors right now.