The M in Fractional CMO

As Adweek and others have recently pointed out, the idea of being a fractional CMO is a trending topic in the marketing world.  And why shouldn't it be?

From the corporate side, marketing has never had better precision, measurement, and attribution — CEOs know more about where they're going and what they’re doing than ever before.  That said, from an attitudinal perspective, many remain far too close to Wannamakers adage “50% of every ad dollar I spend is wasted…I just can't tell which half.”

The role has gotten tougher, has been fractionalized into discontiguous parts (strategy, marcom, martech, partnerships, PR, influencers and more!) and the relationship between the “ad” and the “sales ratio” remains as difficult to convincingly prove as ever.

And from the employee's perspective, marketing budgets have never been more scrutinized, the talent requirements are impossible to fill, and it seems like sorties are being flown in from each and every other capability all day long. (“How hard could it be?).  

And, heck, nearly half the world’s employees are freelance now. Why shouldn’t marketing join in?

From our perspective, Capital M" Marketing still matters. Always has, always will.

Indeed, the “what” of marketing hasn’t changed since it began hundreds of years ago—brands need to understand their customers' needs, build differentiated value propositions that meet those needs, communicate the benefits, measure the results, and to work tirelessly to improve upon. The “how of marketing” has changed immeasurably. It’s different. It's hard. And it works when you get it right.  

But an unintended consequence of all this media and attention fragmentation has been a fractionalization of the marketing capability itself. Marketers are so highly verticalized that it's difficult to find leaders who can connect all the dots: the consumer ones, the company ones, the political ones, the talent ones. The list goes on and on.

So what do we make of the Fractional CMO movement? Candidly we’re all for it….provided that the talent knows what its getting into…and the company actually understands what kind of “M” it's looking to acquire.

‍What is a Fractional CMO?

A Fractional CMO is marketing leadership as a service. But not all Fractional CMO’s are created equal. In our view, it's a problem that nearly anyone can hang up a shingle as a “Fractional CMO.”  Growth hacker who helped XXX do YYY? You're a fractional CMO. Ad agency strategist (or copywriter, art director, or social media manager); you too.

At Covalent we ask everyone what kind of M they are looking for in their fractional CMO.

Do you need a fractional Chief Marketing Officer (has run a full scale, full stack marketing organization)?

A Chief Media Officer (is adept at strategy buying, negotiating, programmatic, etc)?

A Chief Martech officer (knows everything about CPS, DMPs, Salesforce, Adobe and the emerging AI-o-sphere)?

Or even a Chief Messaging Officer?  (Refer to Steve Jobs view on marketing and the importance of that role if you think the need is passé.)

Knowing what you want as an organization matters. The last thing you want is the wrong M leading the main team…or overpaying for what you don't need. Knowing who you are as talent matters.  In a fractional world, you can sort a truly balanced team to solve the problem right. There is no need to exaggerate, but rather to partner. Don’t build. Don't buy. Just ally.

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