21 Oct Lies, damned lies and CMO stories
Are you tired of reading about the CIO-CMO relationship? Bored of hearing about the alleged war between the two roles and of how the CMO is becoming more tech-savvy, spending more on technology, bypassing the CIO and marginalising the role of IT in the process?
Gartner must take a lot of responsibility for this theme following its “prediction” at the beginning of 2012 that CMOs will be spending more on IT than CIOs by 2017. That prediction has served as the basis for countless articles, headlines and studies about the CIO-CMO relationship. It also caused a frenzy of activity within the vendor community as technology providers rushed to shift their sales and marketing efforts to target the marketing function.
Earlier this year I wrote a post about that Gartner prediction and explained how it was at best a misleading statement that needed heavy qualification. There is no real data to support the claim and once you have heard the explanation given by a Gartner VP you will quickly realise that it is pretty meaningless. But still, it gave journalists, industry commentators, marketers and others a good sound bite on which to base all manner of stories, theories and further predictions about the rise of the CMO and the demise of the CIO.