CMO to CEO and 10 years of Ritson: Your Marketing Week
At the end of every week, I look at the key stories, offering my view on what they mean for you and the industry. From the lessons from a CMO-turned CEO to 10 years of Mark Ritson, it’s been a busy week. Here’s my take.
Shape the future
The key to greater impact for a marketer, according to Thomas Barta and Patrick’s Barwise’s book 12 Powers of a Marketing Leader, is offering company and customer value. In short, stop simply doing the job of marketing at the behest of others and start using the many skills you have to lead your company to greater success.
I was reminded of this sound advice reading an interview we published this week with CMO turned CEO of Giffgaff Ash Schofield. He said: “Marketers have a great advantage in that they can provide an insight-led vision of the future, but they can also describe how we’re going to get there. If you can do that, you’re valued because you’re solving problems for a business.”
Whether he knew it or not, Schofield was reiterating the need for marketers to be in equal part company and customer orientated, as championed by Barta and Barwise.