#advertisingagency #agencylife #pitchingbusiness #cmo #bransdirector #creativedirector #marketingdirector #fyp

This is the CMO life cycle. Let me know if it sounds familiar. CEO hires new CMO. CMO meets the agency that's been working with the company. CMO placates them but knows that he has to do something to signal he's making changes. Agency steps up, shows huge great idea to CMO. CMO doesn't know the DNA of the company as good as the agency does, so the CMO doesn't see the genius of it. Besides, if the CMO deploys an idea from an existing agency, what's the CEO going to think? What are you doing over there? I hired you to make changes. So the CMO calls a review, an agency review. So the agency does one of three things, the most ballsiest of which is, good fucking luck, we're out. At which point, if the CMO has any self-awareness, he just got himself fired in 18 months. Number two, the agency says, okay, look, we're going to restaff your account with all fresh faces, but we're also going to have the know-how and the people who know the DNA of your company. Does that sound good? Now, if the CMO were smart, he would say, yeah, that sounds really good. I can go tell my CEO we're making big changes, and I don't lose all this institutional knowledge that will be cut off if we fire you. And of course, if the CMO is smart, the agency will have said, we'll do all that at our expense, call off the pitch. More than likely, the CMO will want to go forward with the pitch so that he can show his CEO that he's doing his job. But he will say to the agency, it's still yours, it's yours to lose. You just have to spend $200,000 or $300,000 to prove to me, someone who doesn't know what he's doing yet, that you know what you're doing. Now, it used to be that CMOs could go into their CEO and say, look at this cool, killer idea. This is going to kill for us. This is going to drive huge sales. But it's not so much about that anymore. It's about, we like these guys because they have this analytical device, they have this tool, and they have this social listening thing, and it's a lot cheaper than what we were paying at that other agency. So the decision is made based on cost. The CMO has sealed his fate because it's not always about cost. In 18 months, they will have forgot why they repitched the business in the first place. The agency that knew everything about that client and how to drive results for it will be on to the next client and millions of dollars will have been wasted for nothing. If this sounds familiar, comment millions in the comments. And if you like marketing and advertising, give me a follow and a like. Thanks.