Comprehensive studies and casual anecdotes continually show that CEO confidence in their CMOs is eroding.
It’s not that marketing isn’t trying to do the right things. CMOs understand their role as the strategic driver of pipeline, performance and revenue. But all too often, the conversation focuses on activity instead of impact. And that creates a significant disconnect between CEOs and CMOs over the value of marketing’s contribution.
Whatever the cause, the implications to this gap are significant. CMO tenure continues to shrink. New titles are taking on more of the CMO’s purview, Marketing budgets are getting cut in the name of efficiency. AI continues to be a conversation many CMOs are under-equipped to address, beyond a few efficiency plays. In short, CMOs need to address this credibility problem. Fast.
To do this, CEOs and CMOs need to see eye-to-eye. Rebuilding alignment, credibility and influence across the C-Suite isn’t just important for marketing; it is essential for business growth. This will require CMOs to focus on a refreshed set of fundamentals:
1. Driving the enterprise strategic narrative and story of value
CEOs and the rest of the C-Suite are increasingly investing in their CMOs for more than their marketing expertise. Your CEO and board are turning to you to provide a comprehensive view of the market, identify trends and shifts, and understand customer dynamics. As CMO, you must be your CEO’s strategic sparring partner, willing to question decisions, rather than simply being a tactical execution arm.
At the same time, areas that had been the domain of the CMO—such as ownership of the brand narrative—are now critical to the CEO’s growth agenda and part of this leader’s portfolio. In this environment, the CMO’s responsibility is to help tell the story of the company and the value it is driving in the world. This new CMO job can create a new kind of CEO-CMO partnership that, when successful, places marketing as a key lever of the enterprise narrative and, ultimately, business growth.
2. Being a growth catalyst and reputation builder, become a dual-threat
Businesses need both demand generation and brand equity. Yet in too many organizations, this is positioned as “brand vs. demand” or “upper funnel vs. lower funnel,” creating inherent conflict between the disciplines even though growth and reputation are intrinsically linked. Even when CMOs talk about “striking a balance” between the two practices, they’re falling into this trap because they’re creating an either/or bifurcation that is out of alignment with people’s consumption patterns.
Instead, CMOs need to commit to both driving growth and building reputation simultaneously because the connected customer journey requires brand and demand to work together. It begins with a solid foundation of mutual goals. Instead of separate plans for growth strategy, brand strategy and marketing, CMOs need a single North Star linked directly to the organization’s overall commercial goals—one that balances the imperative of meeting short-term growth targets while laying the groundwork for sustained, long-term success. The brand remains relevant because it is connected at every touchpoint, and resources can be allocated accordingly.
3. Becoming the “ultimate” source of customer truth
It’s typical to define the CMO’s role as being the “voice of the customer.” But that sells things short by failing to consider the complex decisions that today’s consumers go through when making a purchase. Today’s CMO must delve into the psyche of the customer by using deep behavioral, quantitative and qualitative insights to identify trends and inform strategic business decisions across the organization, from marketing to revenue and to product development.
By turning customer insights into actionable, cross-functional strategies, the CMO can empower a customer-centric culture across every facet of the organization, breaking down silos and ensuring better alignment between marketing, product, sales, finance and other functions. With buyer signals aligned, every department contributes to delivering a consistent, trustworthy experience. The CMO becomes the steward of authenticity and trust.
4. Delivering creative excellence, breaking through the clutter
Today’s CMO needs to be brilliant with both data and creative, delivering deep, meticulous insights plus “wow” positioning and experiences. Breakthrough creative—developed with analytical rigor that supports and proves its direction—is what drives market differentiation.
Does this mean that every CMO has to be a creative genius? Hardly. But you do need to be willing to take calculated creative risks that can push the brand beyond its comfort zone. Consider the campaigns that generate the most buzz today—their breakthrough creative is empowered, not sterilized, by data. And perhaps most importantly, the CMOs of these brands have been able to identify the creative partners that can do this with them and then trust them to make it happen.
5. Reframing marketing as AI transformers
AI is, of course, at the top of 2026 priority areas for both CMO’s and CEO’s…one area they can reach common ground on. This is the CMO’s opportunity to firmly lay out a three year vision, declaring the roles and goals that AI will play in shaping the CMO/marketing/enterprise agenda. Answering the questions of where can AI help us move faster, where is it unlocking value we couldn’t access before, where can AI help disrupt our current workflows and how can we start to unlock net-new growth opportunities through all of the AI tools and assets available to CMO’s is crucial, now.
Recognizing and celebrating the idea that marketing is the ideal test lab for AI, whether it is adding rigor to planning, campaigning and spend or driving out and scaling hyper-personalized content experiences, CMO’s must evangelize both the need for and application of AI as a transformative “agent” for the entire organization. Done well, this will help reframe marketing into both AI transformers and growth leaders.
6. Becoming famous for outcomes, not awards
CMOs are under intense pressure to increase revenue and improve efficiency. But marketing’s traditional KPIs—reach, engagement, brand lift—feel meaningless to CEOs and CFOs who care primarily about profit, stability and capital allocation. When marketing’s primary job is to fill the entirety of the funnel to drive demand, CMOs must be able to prove their success with KPIs that are aligned to business metrics. Even squishy indicators like engagement and brand loyalty that predict future success must be tied to specific business outcomes.
Simply put, CEOs want to know what’s driving growth. CMOs will earn their trust by delivering the data that provides those answers, with no translation necessary. You must be able to explain your world by understanding what’s important to your CEO. Bring data. Bring outcomes. That’s what earns trust.
