I’ve always found it strange how precious marketing is about itself — as if the discipline is fragile and must be protected from the indignity of being treated like normal work.
We over-index on creativity, inspiration, and disruption. We argue that marketing is too nuanced, too ethereal, and too human to be systematized or commoditized. We assert it can’t be measured the same way those other functions are measured.
In doing so, we exempt ourselves from the same operational rigor applied to finance, operations, or legal. And then we’re shocked when executives treat marketing like a cost center instead of a growth engine.
We can’t have it both ways. If we want to be taken seriously, we have to take marketing seriously. The adult table is where predictability, repeatability, and clear alignment with business objectives are valued. It’s not as fun, but it’s where decisions are made.
Executives are already telling us there’s a problem:
Only 34% of CEOs and CFOs see eye-to-eye with CMOs on marketing’s role in supporting growth [Gartner]
Only 17 percent of C-suite execs report having collaborated with CMOs over the past 12 months [Deloitte / HBR]
When asking CEOs and CMOs at the same companies to list their top three marketing metrics, they only agreed half the time [McKinsey]
Marketing does not have a creativity problem. It has a credibility problem.
Yes, executives are sometimes the cause of this. They’ve inherited marketing teams built for output instead of outcomes, creativity instead of consistency, and storytelling instead of substance. They’ve only ever seen marketing as an arts and crafts department, and since that’s familiar and comfortable, they work to keep it that way (consciously or otherwise).
For other executives, it’s less explicit. There is just a lingering sense that marketing is this other thing — not really central to the business, not a core operational function, but something adjacent to the real work.
When marketing leaders then seem to care more about not being boring or about the work they do feeling different, it only reinforces the perception.
That perception then becomes policy.
To be clear, there is a place for creativity; but marketing is not failing on the creativity front. Exciting, clever, and sexy marketing assets are driving more clicks and views and likes and shares than ever before.
What we lack is discipline, rigor, and maturity. We don’t have:
Distinct boundaries and scope around marketing’s role
Clear objectives tied directly to business outcomes
Agreed-upon definitions and shared language across teams
Stable processes and decision frameworks
If marketing wants authority, it has to give up the fantasy that it’s different from every other function. Marketing only works when it behaves like an integrated part of the business — not like a protected art form.
The data is clear. Companies that treat marketing as a core, accountable growth function outperform those that don’t. B2B and B2C companies that prioritize marketing are two times and three times more likely, respectively, to have greater than 5 percent revenue growth.
But marketing has to earn that prioritization.
We have to build the discipline around metrics the executives already trust, decisions driven by evidence instead of taste, and a willingness to be judged the same way every other function is judged.
It all starts with a shift in mindset, not necessarily in skill set — evolving your marketing approach to look more like those other business disciplines, and to be a little less precious about how special marketing thinks it is.
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