Big Brands Seek CMOs

A plethora of plum CMO posts are in need of filling. All come with big-league challenges.
Suddenly it's a job-hunter's market for CMOs. As of a week ago, active searches were on for CMOs for JCPenney, Old Navy, Quaker Oats, Taco Bell, Target, and Wendy's. Last Thursday, KMart was added to the list. And on Friday, Taco Bell found its man.

What's going on? We know that CMOs are under escalating pressure to tie marketing programs to revenue numbers, and that many CMOs are feeling overwhelmed by change in an extremely fast-moving environment. CMO tenures are averaging 23 months lately, according to executive search consultant Kathryn Ullrich. For the CMOs who departed the companies at right, the average tenure was 52 months -- 40 months, if you exclude the 8- and 10-year outliers.
JCPenney's long-time CMO stepped into early retirement in July as its sales lagged those of competitors. At the same time, Ron Johnson, the man behind Apple's wildly successful stores, was named as the new CEO; he soonrecruited Target's long-time CMO, Michael Francis, to work beside him (but not as CMO). Johnson was an executive at Target before moving to Apple. The challenge in this position will be bucking the receding tide as department stores generally fall out of fashion. On the plus side, there's a marketing budget of $1.2 billion.
KMart offers a similar challenge: turning around a major retailer with declining market share. The company lost not only CMO Mark Snyder but also Terry Brophy, VP of integrated marketing communications, reportedly putting in jeopardy its relationship with lead strategic agency DraftFCB. (KMart has tried to squash rumors of any changes to its DraftFCB contract, which expires at the end of January.)
Old Navy's former CMO lasted but a year. The CEO of The Gap, of which Old Navy is a part, has made public comments about the shortcomings of some of the ad campaigns. Still, a $220 million media budget and a fun brand lend allure to this opening.
Quaker Oats, a small brand inside PepsiCo, is profitable but experiencing declines in market share. PepsiCo says the brand is central to its nutrition-forward strategy and promises to bolster marketing spending. Ad outlays were $56 million last year.
Target may offer its new CMO the solidest base to build on of any of the companies on this list. The downside of this position is Target's recent launch of its own e-commerce site, abandoning the Amazon platform that had performed well. The new site, let us simply say, does not. Its failures have apparently claimed the head of its president and online retailing chief, although the company says he left to "pursue other interests." (We have a blog post about Target's problems going live today.)
Finally, Wendy's offers a tasty opportunity for the CMO up to the challenge of scrapping with McDonald's and Burger King while fending off a rising tide of "better burger" outfits such as Five Guys.
It's a good time to be a CMO in search of a new challenge. Bring your sense of adventure.
— Keith Dawson , Senior Editor, The CMO Site
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