CMO Tenure and Its Impact on Category Positioning

The tenure problem

The median CMO tenure at a Fortune 500 company is, by multiple industry surveys, in the range of 24–36 months. The number has been remarkably stable over the past two decades. A 3–5 year category positioning arc is, by definition, longer than the median CMO tenure. The implication is that the median category leader is changing CMO in the middle of the category positioning arc, and the changeover is destabilizing the arc.

The destabilization is not a CMO problem. It is a category positioning problem. A category positioning is a 3–5 year commitment to a position, a narrative, and an operating cadence. The commitment is what produces the brand equity, the customer memory, and the press posture. A changeover in the middle of the commitment is a changeover in the middle of the equity, the memory, and the posture. The new CMO inherits the commitment, but the inheritance is on the new CMO’s terms, and the new CMO’s terms are not the previous CMO’s terms. The arc is broken, and the new arc starts from the old equity, not from a clean slate.

What a category leader can do

A category leader can do four things. The first is to extend the CMO’s tenure by making the CMO’s job a 5-year job. A 5-year job is, on the operating cadence, a job that the CMO can defend at the 18-month review, at the 30-month review, and at the 42-month review. The extension is structural — the job is a 5-year job because the category positioning is a 5-year arc, and the job title and the job description are written to match. A company that wants a 5-year CMO should write a 5-year job.

The second is to make the category positioning the CEO’s positioning, not the CMO’s. The category positioning is the company’s positioning, not the marketing department’s positioning, and the CEO is the one who has to defend the positioning at the board, the analyst call, and the press conference. A company that puts the positioning on the CEO has a 5-year positioning arc even if the CMO changes every 30 months; a company that puts the positioning on the CMO has a 30-month positioning arc even if the CMO stays for 5 years.

The third is to make the category positioning a documented decision, not a personal one. A documented decision is a decision that survives the CMO. A personal decision is a decision that does not. A category leader that has the category positioning in a 40-page document, signed off by the leadership team, reviewed annually by the board, and referenced in every customer-facing artifact is a category leader that has a 5-year positioning arc; a category leader that has the category positioning in the CMO’s head is a category leader that has a 30-month positioning arc.

The fourth is to make the CMO change a brand event, not a brand disruption. A brand event is a changeover that is announced, explained, and reinforced; a brand disruption is a changeover that is unannounced, unexplained, and unreinforced. A category leader that announces the changeover, explains the inheritance, and reinforces the equity is a category leader that comes out of the changeover with the equity intact; a category leader that does not announce, explain, or reinforce is a category leader that comes out of the changeover with the equity diluted.

The advisory, in one sentence

A category leader should not depend on a CMO’s tenure to carry the category positioning; the category leader should depend on a documented decision, a CEO who carries the positioning, a 5-year job description that supports the positioning, and a brand event for the changeover. The four moves together produce a 5-year positioning arc that survives the median CMO tenure.