There’s a jarring statistic that exemplifies the current state of marketing: 60% of CEOs now view marketing as a cost center, up from 35% last year. CEOs who view marketing as a profit center fell from 65% to 40%, according to a Boathouse study.
CEOs are increasingly skeptical of the value of all those millions or even billions of dollars they dish out to their marketing teams to spend on Super Bowl buys, banner ads, creator partnerships or expensive pop-up activations.
Marketers need to reverse this trend before they’re viewed as a standard overhead expense rather than a growth driver, further commoditizing the agencies that support them. The 4As invited Campaign to discuss how marketing leaders can counteract these concerns by building growth-geared organizations and how agencies can best support them.
“Agencies have got to be more aggressive about demanding to be in the room for the annual plan and not just get the debrief on it,” says Justin Thomas-Copeland, the CEO of the 4As. “Otherwise we’re going to go to the bottom before we get the elevation to the top.”
