Image source: Coca-Cola
The departure of Coca-Cola Global Chief Marketing Officer Marcos de Quinto underscores how marketing is changing.
The CMO retired as part the company’s organizational restructuring. Coca-Cola will consolidate marketing, customer and commercial leadership strategy into one function led by Chief Growth Officer Francisco Crespo, former president of Coke’s Mexico business unit. Crespo will report to new CEO James Quincey, former chief operating officer who replaced Muhtar Kent.
Coca-Cola was gracious to de Quinto, a 14-year veteran of the company in its announcement, saying he “will leave behind a strong legacy.” However, commentators say the restructuring reveals the company’s dissatisfaction. Soft drink sales are flat. Critics blame it for increasing obesity and diabetes.
Will a Chief Growth Officer Improve Growth?
Marketing and PR experts expressed mixed opinions about replacing the CMO position with a chief growth officer. Coca-Cola will lack a global CMO for the first time since 1993. Blake Morgan, a customer experience expert, says the company suffers from a poor brand image. “Rather than spend on growth during a challenging period, it is a better option to think about how the world sees the Coke brand — and that is a marketing activity,” Morgan writes in Forbes. “Axing the CMO is not going to help them.”
Other large corporations have created CGO positions, sometimes eliminating their chief marketing positions, sometimes keeping them, says Bob Van Rossum, president of MarketPro, in Business 2 Community. A few examples include Mondelēz, Tyson Foods Kellogg, PayPal and Best Buy and others. Clearly unsatisfied with their growth, they’re trying a new organizational structure, often with new team members.
Van Rossum urges companies to think twice before creating a CGO position. Lack of growth could be due to a range of factors, such as the particular executive, internal politics or other problems with the overall organization. In Coke’s case, lack of growth can be largely attributed to change in consumer tastes to drinks with no sugar and, in many cases, no sweeteners. Coke has not kept up with that change. As explained in Businessweek by the new CEO, Coke has also not kept pace with new packaging preferences, namely smaller packages for drinks instead of 12 or 16 ounces. These types of decisions will fall under the new growth officer or the new innovation officer.
Business growth can’t be achieved through marketing alone; it requires the entire organization. That can be difficult when many other business leaders see marketing as just the “make things pretty department,” he says. “Even when CMOs see the right path forward, they are often unable to act with the needed authority to implement new policies and make changes.”
Measurement Now Vital as Marketing Comes Under Scrutiny
Coca-Cola’s restructuring shows that marketing executives are under greater scrutiny and under pressure to show concrete results, says Sam Melnick, vice president of marketing at marketing software provider Allocadia.
As marketing budgets increase, due to the rise of digital and social media, they attract greater scrutiny, Melnick writes in MarketingProfs. Yet many marketers cannot prove how their budgets boost sales or revenues.
It’s essential for marketing leaders to change the perception of marketing as a cost center to a growth center. To accomplish that, they must be able to measure the impact of their investments.
Successful marketing leaders will run marketing like a business. “A strict discipline is required behind the scenes within a marketing organization—behind the campaign, the creative, and the customer-facing tactics,” Melnick says. “This discipline focuses on a clear line of sight into all marketing investments, a unified approach to marketing planning, and tight, accurate, actionable measurements.”
Bottom Line: Coca-Cola’s organizational overhaul and creation of a chief growth officer shows that marketing executives and their departments can suffer consequences if they don’t produce results. Whether or not the trend of creating chief growth officers continues remains to be seen, but the corporate restructuring does illustrate the need to produce measureable results.
William J. Comcowich founded and served as CEO of CyberAlert LLC, the predecessor of Glean.info. He is currently serving as Interim CEO and member of the Board of Directors. Glean.info provides customized media monitoring, media measurement and analytics solutions across all types of traditional and social media.
