The CMO role is not dying. The department is. | FE Show #177

Every quarter someone writes the obituary for the CMO. The seat keeps getting cut, the tenure keeps getting shorter, and the conclusion is always the same: marketing does not need a leader anymore.

Wrong diagnosis. The role is not dying. The department, as most companies built it, is.

In this episode:
- Why growth went to sales, brand went to product, and the CMO was left with content and events
- The basketball version: a point guard who does not know the score
- Pipeline is an outcome of positioning, pricing and distribution, not a metric to chase
- Five questions a CEO should ask any CMO candidate (and listen for the numbers)
- Why an empty seat beats the wrong CMO

Funky Enterprises Show, episode 177. Host: Nemanja Živković, Strategy Director and Senior Partner at Funky Enterprises.

Chapters:
00:00 Cold open: the point guard who does not know the score
00:45 Intro: where this topic came from
03:11 Why smart people believe the CMO is dead
06:03 How three of the four levers left marketing, and the MQL era
07:26 Pipeline is an outcome, not a metric
10:01 Three stories: positioning, productization, distribution
12:58 Unit economics: what the CMO has to know
13:42 Five questions a CEO should ask any CMO candidate
15:07 Mid-sized companies: an empty seat beats the wrong CMO
17:12 Objections: brand cannot be measured, the CFO, we are too small
19:39 Closing: the Funky Enterprises Show site