Study among marketing leaders illustrates shift to digital

A study by the CMO Council has found that marketers are looking beyond traditional advertising agencies in favour of digital experts in their marketing strategies.

The report, “The Path Forward: Marketing’s Outlook Into The Digital Future”, found that 72 per cent of chief marketing officers would seek new partners to better exploit data and digital capabilities.

Marketers said that they sought additional expertise in data analytics, content creation and channel proliferation to improve their return on investment, the study found.

The report’s findings illustrate the shift to digital and data marketing, as marketers look less to advertising firm or media agencies and more to solution providers to face the biggest marketing challenges.

“Our agencies and partners are absolutely different than they were even one year ago,” said one marketing leader.

“We have tripled our digital budgets compared to two years ago, so we are working to protect that. Our greatest areas of investment today are actually going toward building our digital infrastructure and our talent, so the agencies and partners we have now must be different as we look to address things like data and shopper behaviours.”

Liz Miller, senior vice president of marketing for the CMO Council, said: “What this brings to the surface is an even more heightened need to get the highest levels of performance and output—not just from the marketing organisation, but also from the external agencies and marketing performance partners employed by the organisation.”