THE DEATH OF THE CMO: But What’s Really in a Name?

I recently came across an article titled “The Fortune 500 Is Deleting the CMO Title.”

It presented some startling statistics.

According to the article, only 36% of Fortune 500 companies now use the title Chief Marketing Officer, down from 49% just a year earlier. It also stated that senior marketing executives who sit on the executive team or report directly to the CEO have fallen from 58% to 52%.

The article cited several major companies that have either eliminated the standalone CMO role or absorbed marketing into growth, commercial, strategy, operations or communications.

I will admit, the numbers startled me.

But then I reminded myself of something I have always believed: business, like life, moves in cycles.

Roles emerge. Titles change. Structures evolve. And often, what disappears eventually returns in another form.

What stayed with me more than the statistics was Shakespeare’s famous question:

What’s in a name?

When you study what some of the most successful CMOs have actually done, their contribution has never been limited to launching marketing campaigns.

In fact, the word “campaign” itself has become very loosely used since digital marketing came into existence and then thrived. A few advertisements, a landing page, some social media content and a media budget are now often called a campaign.

But great CMOs have always done far more.

They have helped create, reposition and catapult brands. They have built mass awareness and converted that awareness into commercial success. More importantly, they have created SMART AWARENESS: ensuring that the right audience understands the brand, trusts it and considers it at the right moment.

They have helped businesses enter new cities, new categories and new countries.

They have created strategic partnerships that gave brands access to larger audiences, stronger credibility and new commercial opportunities.

They have influenced customer experience, pricing, distribution, product propositions, retention and the way a company presents itself to the world.

Everything that great CMOs have done, and continue to do, ultimately leads to one outcome:

COMMERCIAL SUCCESS.

Sometimes that success appears as immediate revenue. Sometimes it appears as greater brand preference, stronger pricing power, improved customer retention, better-quality demand or access to a market the company could not enter earlier.

But the destination has always been business growth. So I struggle to understand why there is now so much noise around the word “CMO.”

Call the role Chief Growth Officer. Call it Chief Revenue Officer. Call it Chief Commercial Officer.

If the KPIs continue to include brand growth, customer acquisition, retention, market expansion, strategic partnerships and revenue, have we genuinely changed the role?

Or have we only changed the nameplate?

There is, of course, an argument that a Chief Growth Officer, Chief Revenue Officer or Chief Commercial Officer may have broader ownership.

That may be true when the role genuinely controls pricing, distribution, sales, retention, product-market decisions and the complete revenue engine.

But broader ownership should not mean turning marketing into sales.

Marketing’s fundamental role is to create demand, preference and trust. It must present the product and the brand in a way that creates pull and makes sales easier. Sales then converts that demand into business.

Owning both functions under one leader may improve alignment, but it also carries a significant risk.

When quarterly revenue targets dominate the agenda, long-term brand building can quickly become secondary. The conversation becomes about this month’s pipeline, conversion and revenue.

All important questions.

But who is then protecting the positioning, future demand, pricing power, customer trust and the next big idea that could change the trajectory of the brand?

Brands cannot be built only by leaders chasing the current quarter.

There is also an organisational question.

If the Chief Sales Officer and Chief Marketing Officer are placed under a Chief Commercial Officer, has the company genuinely added a new capability? Or has it simply added one expensive layer of management between the CEO and the people creating demand and closing business?

More reviews. More reporting. More approvals. More filtering. Possibly less speed.

The structure adds value only when the CCO owns a genuinely different mandate. Otherwise, the company may be creating another senior position to solve an alignment problem that leadership should already have solved.

And then there is the transparency question.

If the CCO has direct access to the CEO and the board, while the Sales Head and Marketing Head do not, what version of reality finally reaches the top?

The sales reality gets summarised. The marketing reality gets interpreted. The brand risks may get reduced to immediate numbers.

The CEO may hear one consolidated commercial narrative, but not necessarily the complete tension, disagreement or opportunity underneath it.

Sometimes the value of having Sales and Marketing close to the CEO is precisely that the CEO hears both perspectives directly. Sales tells the CEO what customers are saying today.Marketing tells the CEO what the market needs to believe tomorrow.

Both matter.

The CEO was always meant to align Sales and Marketing and remain the ultimate owner of commercial success.

A CCO can certainly help coordinate that engine. But the role should not become a convenient way for the CEO to transfer responsibility for growth to one new designation. Because if the CEO has handed over Sales, Marketing, Customer Experience, Pricing and Revenue to a single commercial leader, it is fair to ask:

What part of commercial leadership is the CEO still personally owning?

This is why the more important question is not whether companies still need the title CMO.

The question is:

Which business outcomes were not being delivered earlier?

Was the CMO not accountable for revenue?

Was the mandate unclear?

Were marketing metrics disconnected from commercial metrics?

Did the role lack authority over customer experience, pricing, product or distribution?

Was the reporting line too far removed from the CEO?

Those are genuine organisational problems.

But if the original KPIs were incomplete, rewrite the KPIs.

If the mandate was unclear, clarify the mandate.

If marketing was being measured only through impressions, leads and campaigns, change the measurement system.

If Sales and Marketing were not working together, fix the leadership and operating rhythm.

Changing the designation alone will not solve any of this.

The title is not the asset. The mandate, authority, reporting line and accountability are.

Perhaps the CMO is not dying at all.

Perhaps companies are simply renaming the same commercial responsibility while hoping the new title will solve an old leadership problem.

Because what’s in a name?

Far less than what is in the mandate.