In a Wave of Crises, a New CMO Playbook Emerges

Fifteen months ago, as the world began to go into lockdown mode, Heide Palermo and I began to host a series of marketing community support calls for CMOs and top Innovators. The world had changed. Consumers were panicking. Employees were rewiring their homes. Retailers were scrambling. Brands were at a standstill. Marketing was disrupted. Everything was suddenly very different. The CMO Reboot Playbooks Real Heroes came together For our first call, in the heat of the first few weeks, Indra Nooyi, former Chairman and CEO of PepsiCo, joined us to provide her perspective on how to manage through crisis. She left us with hope with her guiding mantra, “Be nostalgic about the past, realistic about the present, and optimistic about the future.” Everything was suddenly very different. And so it began. The long, winding, unpredictable road to navigate through the turbulent times and plan for a brighter future. After about 5 different calls to support different industries, the very first sports call, which brought together 14 different league CMOs, came up with the first-ever cross-league PSA to support front-line medical workers called The Real Heroes. What started as an idea from NHL CMO Heidi Browning, then quarterbacked by NFL CMO Tim Ellis, quickly became a “CMO league” reminding DC Comics GM Daniel Cherry III of the Justice League. With 72andSunny in high gear, The Real Heroes launched to the Halo tune from Beyoncé and brought leagues, clubs, athletes, and fans together to offer genuine support for front-line medical workers. DEI could no longer be ignored It was right about this time that another world-stopping event was about to happen. May 25, 2020—the killing of George Floyd. That was two days before the Adweek DEI Summit and the tone of the Summit took a radical turn. What was planned to be a call to action for brands and businesses to double-down on DEI initiatives, became a call to action for all to “Be enraged. Be enraged. Be enraged.” from Bozoma Saint John, CMO of Netflix. And so it continued. More community calls. The world had changed again. The role of marketing elevated In June of 2020, we hosted two back-to-back CMO Symposiums to dive deep into the challenges and work together to bring forward solutions for all. With a short survey, we saw and heard that the role of the CMO had never been more important to lead their companies, employees and consumers through the challenges. In fact, at that time, 68% of CMOs said the role of marketing had elevated in the prior three months. By January this year, 77% of CMOs said the role had elevated. Further, as we drilled into the shifts from the prior three months and tried to predict the shifts in the following three months, it became very obvious (and measurable through the survey), that mental health of employees was the #1 concern. Advertising budgets had been slashed, social media spend was up as a way to authentically communicate with consumers, partnerships were being put on hold, especially agency contracts, and everyone was in short-term response mode still. From this point forward, we banned together in the form of Collaboration Teams to roll up our sleeves and come up with solutions. Over 90 CMOs and Top Innovators participated across six collaboration teams and another 46 leaders dove into DEI. As we began penning the outline for the CMO Reboot playbooks, everyone had a unique “play” to contribute. The work became the foundation for the topics covered at Brandweek through 16 new Masterclasses, the live plays delivered at Outlook 2021, and drove 7 DEI summits focused on unique communities. Where are we today? I hate to say this in this way, but we are in the heat of another crisis. Literally. This year has officially been declared as a “Make or Break” year when it comes to the future of our planet. With covid impacting government progress, it was recently estimated the public sector is less than 1% to where they need to be to protect our planet from a massive meltdown. Recently, we launched the Adweek Sustainability Council, and in collaboration with the Adweek DEI Council, we hosted a two-day Sustainability Summit covering every single United Nations SDG with top CSOs, CMOs, CBOs from some of the world’s most significant brands. The bottom line? We all have to do more to be accountable for our practices and find ways to help consumers be part of the equation. The CMO Reboot Playbooks With a plethora of great advice flowing across pages and stages, we’ve aggregated all the input over the past year into several playbooks. Where no playbook existed for 2020 and new ones needing to be written for 2021, we collaborated across the industry to bring these forward. Per that first call with Indra Nooyi, hearing how she navigated many crises throughout her career, my biggest takeaway was never take anything for granted. Stop, look, listen on a daily basis. Be nostalgic about the past, realistic about the present, and optimistic about the future. We are delighted to share new plays from industry leaders in the hopes that these plays, and playbooks, can help other marketers in their journeys of navigating through the new normal. We hope you enjoy Adweek's CMO Reboot Playbooks below as well as the Sustainability and DEI Playbook. Be sure to bookmark both pages as more plays are coming and these playbooks will evolve as the world, the industry, and consumers continue to evolve. The Elevated Role of Marketing Team Health, Development and Productivity Realigning Resources for a Modern Marketing Support Mix Activating Brand Purpose Authentically Connecting with Consumers and Community Reallocation of Spend ADWEEK SUSTAINABILITY PLAYBOOK

CMO Reboot Playbooks

In a Wave of Crises, a New CMO Playbook Emerges

The story behind Adweek’s CMO Reboot, Sustainability, and DEI Playbooks

Real Heroes came together

Nadine Dietz

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