Popimedia launches CMO2020 initiative

Amidst the backdrop of a rapidly evolving business environment, characterised by a need for innovation to cut through the marketing clutter, and the growing trend of digital disruption led by mobile, the role of the chief marketing officers (CMOs) of the future will be fundamentally different to what it is today.

In an effort to determine if local CMOs are prepared and equipped for this paradigm shift, and to help them better prepare for the demands of their evolving role, Popimedia, an ad-tech company that builds businesses on social media, has launched the CMO2020 initiative.

“Without a shift in mindset toward performance-driven marketing, CMOs risk losing their relevance as technology and data-driven sales initiatives grow in prominence within the organisation, potentially championed by other C-level executives,” says Daniel Levy, co-founder and CEO of Popimedia. “We are therefore creating an opportunity for strategic level marketers to join the conversation and create their future.

Daniel Levy, CEO of Popimedia.

“Our aim is to first determine how CMOs are currently leveraging digital touchpoints such as social media, data and mobile across the organisation to meet their marketing, communication and business objectives,” explains Levy. “We will then better define what the role of a CMO will be in 2020 and beyond, specifically identifying how they need to evolve to ensure strategic relevance.”

Gil Sperling, co-founder and CTO at Popimedia, adds that CMO2020 will be a platform for strategic C-level marketers and executives to share their thinking on the rapidly changing role of the CMO, in addition to canvassing the opinions of other key role players in the industry, to formulate the blueprint for the CMO of the future. Key outcomes of the events and additional resources, including findings from research projects that will be undertaken by Popimedia as part of CMO2020, will be made available via the initiative's dedicated website, CMO2020.net.

“Ultimately we want to prepare CMOs and enable them to continue to drive business in the future,” continues Sperling, who substantiates this need by referencing figures from a recent CMO Council and Deloitte report that states only 6% of CMOs are currently defining routes to future revenue across all facets of their business globally, with only 10% embracing customer-direct e-commerce channels and new monetisation programmes that upsell and cross-sell.

The conversation begins in May, with two CMO2020 events, one in Johannesburg and another in Cape Town, hosted by Popimedia and Jeremy Maggs, where CEOs will be pitted against CIOs to gauge the future of digital relevance and responsibility.

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