CMO OF THE YEAR

Chief Marketing Officers are the new pacesetters of business transformation. A whole range of socially relevant issues are influencing brand management in a way that has never been seen before in this intensity and are presenting CMOs with new challenges in communicating the brand internally and externally and in the area of leadership. To recognise the new responsibilities of the Chief Marketing Officer, the REB.Institute has launched the "CMO OF THE YEAR" award. From 2022 onwards, the achievements of CMOs will be awarded annually. "We want to send a clear signal, because CMOs have become true and indispensable pacemakers of business transformation," says Harald Steiner, explaining the decision. "We have over 800 CMOs in our database. The screening of activities shows us a picture of the mood, which trends are being followed and to what extent. The accompanying desk research as part of the empirical Real Estate Brand Value Study ultimately provides an insight into the consistency and successes of brand management." This year, the focus was on the D-A-CH region; from 2023, monitoring and screening will extend to the whole of Europe. This year, 18 of the first 100 CMOs selected were nominated for the AWARD. In principle, only CMOs who have been actively working in their function for at least 12 months are selected. First, the activities and performance of the CMOs in the context of brand management as well as the measures taken at the corporate level are evaluated. Particular attention is paid to the clarity and stringency of the communication, the sustainable selection of the channels required for this as well as the efficiency of the measures to strengthen the positioning of the corporate brand. The scoring model is therefore made up of the individual performance of the CMOs, the brand potential and the quality of the company's development, according to the formula: 


Fig. 1: CMO BRAND IMPACT SCORE (Source: REB. Institute, 2022)


THE RESULT: CMO BRAND IMPACT SCORE OF 87.3

The assessment and evaluation of all criteria resulted in the highest CMO BRAND IMPACT SCORE score of 87.3 points for Sandra Brand. The Head of Corporate Communications and Marketing at Drees & Sommer SE is CMO of the Year 2022. 

In the interview (pages 68, 69) she talks about the new challenges facing CMOs and the future of marketing.


CMO OF THE YEAR 2022   SANDRA BRAND


"We will no longer inform people, but convince them."

The future of marketing? "Leading a brand together, honestly and provably. Because if the marketing campaign conveys something different, such as the employees of a company - then things get tight," says Sandra Brand. Born in Stuttgart, she has been Head of Corporate Communications and Marketing at Drees & Sommer SE since 2004. In the interview, she talks about the old and new challenges of CMOs, refers to the change in the real estate industry, explains the "real competence" of a CMO and paints a picture of the future of marketing - where, despite all the technological achievements, it is all about human cooperation and authenticity again.


In your view, how has the remit of CMOs changed or expanded in times of digital transformation in recent years?
Whereas before the transformation CMOs were still "advertisers" between "proofs and print", today budgets have long since shifted towards digital channels. What has become new and central is therefore the engagement with the MarTech stack and thus a much closer cooperation with IT. The changed task is to make collaborative ecosystems as automated as possible, but at the same time as human as possible. The challenge is to build an honest human experience that matches analogue and digital.

How do you personally interpret the role and the focal points of the CMO in the real estate industry - especially in view of the changes in the industry.
The mission is clear: to manage the brand internally and externally. In the process, more and more socially relevant topics are being added (ESG, diversity, etc.), where I don't ask myself whether they influence brand management - but how. More than ever, the focus is on people and communicating the company's social goals to all stakeholders. These stakeholders develop new needs and choose a brand or a service under new premises. For example, if a brand cannot answer the question of purpose, it could become critical to attract new employees or new customers. Content is becoming limitless in the digital market and target groups are becoming blurred. Managing the brand in the area of conflict between purpose and added value will not only concern us in the real estate industry.  

What competencies characterise excellent CMOs?
There is probably no blueprint for an "excellent CMO". But in addition to craftsmanship, I think he should be able to endure the FOMO (Fear of missing out). If you have built your brand well, you don't always have to chase every hype. ClubHouse? TikTok? NFT? Web 3.0? It is worthwhile to observe with composure where you really want to be the first mover. This means that you also have to endure headwinds and not fall into actionism. Because many measures could help to be "in" in the short term. But what is "in" today is "out" tomorrow. In my opinion, the real competence of a CMO is to think entrepreneurially and in the long term, to manage the brand in such a way that it is not "in" but "timelessly resilient".

A brief look into the future: What will continue to change about the profession in the coming years?Earned content will be the all-important component of the future. That is why the topic of leadership and internal communication will gain central importance in the CMO's job description. Own messages will only be received if others confirm them. So we want others to speak well of us? In the social media? Then in the future we will focus more than ever on people. We will no longer inform people, but convince them. And now it gets exciting: If the communicative conviction succeeds, it will only last if it can be experienced and remains provable. Because if the marketing campaign communicates something different, like the employees of a company - then things get tight. In the future, it will no longer be just the marketing department that communicates, but thousands of colleagues in parallel. They all become brand ambassadors. This requires a completely new understanding of leadership and internal communication. Because to lead all employees internally and to inspire them in such a way that they communicate together, honestly and demonstrably to lead a brand, is a completely new challenge for the future.


 

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