In Advertising Age – CMOs, You Have 23 Months to Live we see that chief marketing officers have a shorter life span than ever before. They don’t even live until their second annual review. Why is that? Are senior management’s expectations reasonable? What can a CMO truly accomplish in 23 months? Or did the wrong person get the job?
It’s true that most new employees are fully out of fresh ideas within 23 months. They just can’t keep on looking at the same desk in a new way. But is that a reason to shred the team — and incur the expense of turnover and replacement? I don’t think so. Why not keep the people and add new ideas?
How do smart clients do that? Some bring in an idea generation team from Young Isaac. In 28 days, we can generate hundreds of new ideas through principled brainstorming. Then we filter the ideas based on your criteria. In the end, your team (the people who know you, who don’t need to be replaced so quickly) can ready these ideas for implementation.
Hey, CEO, why not give that CMO six more months?