Marketers from Mastercard, Boston Consulting, and Infosys argue that even though AI presents a huge opportunity to enhance CMO capabilities for executives, youth perceptions of marketing are at risk. Masu.
Young people don't think marketing is a viable career. This was the consensus when The Drum partnered with Infosys to host a discussion at the World Economic Forum in Davos. The panel discussion “Will AI crown CMOs?” featured Mastercard CMO Raja Rajamannar, Boston Consulting CMO Jessica Apotheker, and Infosys CMO Sumit Virmani. We shared our thoughts on whether AI could ultimately lead to more CMOs becoming CEOs in the coming years.
A Google search shows that currently not a single CEO of a FTSE 100 company has a CMO background, and panelists suggested that AI (if used wisely) could help change that statistic in the future. There were concerns about the perception of marketing as a career. Choice expressed.
“The Association of National Advertisers conducted a survey of college students in which they ranked every profession as a potential career,” says Rajamanar. “In the year I qualified, marketing was the number one career choice. Today, marketing as a career ranks lower than accounting or nursing. That's very sad. There is a belief that marketing is a game of fraud and playing mind tricks. Students In our perception, being a marketer is like a used car salesman. It is not considered a noble profession.”
According to Infosys' Virmani, at the university level, there remains a fundamental disconnect about what exactly marketing is and what marketers and marketing can do for business. He believes that many people feel that having a good time and taking beautiful photos is more important than achieving business results.
“We have interns from even the best schools in the world who come to us with the idea that marketing is all about glamor and glitz,” Virmani said. “They don't understand that marketing is really all about driving growth, driving profits, and moving the business forward. That conversation is foreign to them. unless it is fundamentally satisfied [with people who understand marketing] It can be difficult to get people into marketing who understand the true power of marketing.
So, with so many changes impacting the field of marketing, how should we position the industry and “sell” it to young people considering a career in marketing?
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“Marketing needs to be positioned as a rapidly evolving, intellectually stimulating profession that requires a very broad skill set,” Boston Consulting's Apothekar said. “You need to show that this field offers many opportunities to make a real business impact. And have fun at the same time. If you're willing to continue learning new things in a fast-paced and dynamic environment, If that's the type of person you want, then marketing is the career path to choose.”
The reality is, there's probably never been a better time to be a marketer. The opportunity presented by advances in AI is to help CMOs demonstrate the tangible value they bring to the boardroom table and demonstrate how other companies are leveraging marketing to add value. The committee concluded that they will be able to promote themselves within the organization.
Mr. Rajamana said: “The great irony is that marketers have been bad at marketing as a department for years. We're terrible at it because, classically and traditionally, marketers are very right-brained. I think.”
So what can we do to get more CMOs to the top table in the future?
The committee concluded that CMOs can more regularly become CEOs of companies by focusing on performance, taking responsibility for company growth, and leveraging innovation and creativity in a competitive environment. .
Apothekar said: “If CMOs don't speak up now and say, 'I am the voice of the customer,' and ask, 'What are we thinking about these new technologies?' “How do we apply them to deliver value first and foremost?” That leaves many companies without the opportunity for CMOs to grow beyond marketing. ”
