By Aislín Johnston
In recent years, marketing has been treated as the most expendable line item in the corporate playbook. When pressure mounts, it’s the first focus area for budget cuts, and if results disappoint, it’s the CMO who takes the fall. This disproportionate gap in grace isn’t because marketing inherently lacks value; it’s because boards and CEOs have misunderstood what marketing is for and the value it can bring to the table. Too often, it has been relegated to an ornamental placeholder in strategy meetings, while other departments are perceived as doing more of the heavy lifting. That view, however, is woefully obsolete.
The organisations that will thrive in 2025 and beyond are those that understand marketing is strategy. Strategy complemented by creativity, but strategy, nonetheless. The CMO is not a supporting act; they are the only executive who can effectively unite what the customer wants with what the business needs, and the sidelines are no place for that kind of insight.
Misunderstood and Marginalised
Marketing budgets are in freefall, and have been since the start of the COVID pandemic. CMOs in 2025 are working with as little as 7.7% of an organisation’s internal revenue, the lowest in more than a decade, and still expected to deliver miracles with a fraction of the resources. The considerable distance between resource allocation and performance expectations serves only to further destabilise marketing’s perception as a value-add and compromise organisational buy-in for bold or unconventional decisions that CMOs may want to make down the line for the benefit of the business.
This organisational blind spot explains why turnover in the CMO role is consistently the highest in the C-suite. What makes the CMO role unique is not creativity or campaign execution, but the integration of multiple disciplines, resources and skillsets into one (ideally) well-oiled ecosystem built on multiple moving parts. CMOs sit at the junction of product, sales, finance, and technology. They know how demand is generated, how loyalty is sustained, and how brand equity compounds over time. Their greatest stumbling block is often persuading peers that this fusion is not reporting on questionable metrics but, in fact, the infrastructure and motor of strategic and sustainable growth.
The Turning Point
This is precisely where the conversation needs to change. Forbes has voiced similar sentiments, stating that “the CMO is in many ways a Chief Strategy Officer, blending corporate strategy with customer needs”. But to us, the argument can and does go much further. The CMO is not simply a blend of functions, and its purpose isn’t ancillary; it’s existential. They are the integrator of the modern organisation, the one role that can unify fragmented priorities into a coherent growth agenda.
The reality is that industries are saturated, and customer loyalty is increasingly fragile, especially in the long term. Technological advancements are outpacing even the largest corporations. Strategy can no longer be written in the boardroom alone; it must be informed by lived customer reality. And the CMO is the one leader equipped to bridge those two worlds. This is the turning point. Marketing’s marginalisation has gone as far as it can. The conditions that once pushed CMOs to the sidelines are the same conditions that now demand a decisive comeback.
The Prodigal Return
It’s time for CMOs to stop asking permission and step into the role they were meant to fill, because in 2025, businesses cannot function effectively without the integrative role that only marketing can play. Deloitte’s CMO Insights 2025 makes the stakes clear. CMOs say the CEO is their most important strategic partner, yet many admit they spend less time with them than with any other executive. That absence from the top table is precisely what has undermined the role. But it also points to the opportunity: when CMOs reclaim their seat, they are uniquely positioned to unify the C-suite.
As Deloitte observes, “the most successful CMOs place the business first, and marketing second, earning the trust of the CEO, CFO and the entire leadership team” That is not the profile of a peripheral player; it is the definition of an enterprise leader.
Customer fluency, strategic integration, and soft-power influence make the modern CMO an indispensable growth architect, and it’s time to act accordingly. The sidelines were never marketing’s natural place. The centre of strategy has always been its home, and the moment to reclaim it is now.
Chesamel’s Approach
Chesamel is more than a consultancy; we’re your partner in transformation.
Our marketing transformation initiatives return marketing to its rightful place: the strategic core of every organisation. We believe customer knowledge is the single greatest competitive advantage organisations hold, and we work to ensure it informs every decision end-to-end. We don’t hand over a static plan and walk away. We embed alongside your teams, aligning marketing with strategy, building coalitions across the C-suite, and adapting in real time to the shifting conditions of your market. If you’re ready to bring marketing back into the fold, we should talk.
