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Much is riding on your media marketing and advertising strategy. Driving sales, mostly. Brand loyalty and customer experience, too. CMOs really need to get this right. The problem is that the media landscape has become wildly unpredictable. Digital channels rise and fall with the mercurialness of human behavior. All of this makes achieving campaign desired outcomes elusive.

“Fundamentally, marketing is getting harder for brands to connect with their intended audiences, whether we're talking about data privacy, cultural issues or the fragmented media landscape,” says Dave Schneider, vice president and CMO at Red Wing Shoe.

Today’s CMO must be incredibly agile in order to successfully navigate this environment. They have to be able to learn quickly and pivot fast when things aren’t going to plan. They need to make smart decisions based on data, not only gut hunches.

In our study, Optimizing Outcomes in Media Marketing, 8 in 10 marketing leaders say media marketing and advertising is extremely (37%) or very (43%) important in winning customers. Considerably less — although no less impressive — say it’s extremely (16%) or very (36%) important in retaining customers.

Unfortunately, most have a long way to go. Our study found that 2 in 3 marketing leaders are not very confident in their current media marketing and advertising strategy to effectively produce desired outcomes. They run into budget barriers, lack data science skills, and sometimes are mired in a corporate culture stuck in old ways of thinking about media marketing and advertising.

The problem with budgets, or lack thereof, often traces back to corporate culture — that is, how a company views media marketing and advertising. Is it an investment or an expense? The answer to this makes all the difference in budget allocation. If a company sees marketing as an investment, it will invest dollars to build capabilities and learn about customers and their buying behavior. If a company sees this as an expense, it might reduce spending in one channel and buy three minutes more of advertising in another — a kind of zero-sum game.

So what are the one-third of marketers who are very confident doing differently? They’re ahead of the game in critical capabilities such as in-flight campaign optimization, accurate and efficient customer targeting, driving consistent campaign results, and more. These capabilities reflect a marketer’s agility, understanding of customer data, and ability to learn and improve.

The CMO Council and NCSolutions embarked on an extensive study to understand what’s the impact of media marketing and advertising today, where marketers can improve their capabilities, what they should be planning over the next 12 months, and what challenges need to be overcome.

Our findings are based on a survey of over 160 marketing leaders in North America predominately in consumer packaged goods and retail. Additionally, we conducted in-depth interviews with executives from companies such as Blue Buffalo and Red Wing Shoe.

For more, download the report.

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