New report shows brand leaders face big challenges aligning marketing and comms teams

Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council has published, in partnership with Cision, a new report - Bridging the Gap for Comms & Marketing: Building Cohesion in the Age of Customer Disruption.

The new report details the best practices and technologies for overcoming the challenges that brand leaders face when aligning marketing and comms teams. The insights are based on a survey of over 150 brand leaders and nearly a dozen in-depth interviews with executives from companies including IBM, Nokia, Schneider Electric, Lamps Plus, Certified First, Center for Creative Leadership, R&R Partners and InnerWorkings. Download the full report.

Bridging the Gap for Comms & Marketing highlights the importance of consistent messaging across paid, owned and earned media.

Topics that emerged from the study include:

The future of the marketing-comms relationship
The primary challenges when aligning marketing and comms
Which technologies and solutions help drive cohesion
The misunderstanding of roles and media channels

Brand leaders surveyed for the report also addressed how Covid-19 increased the importance to deliver cohesive messaging.
“With the majority of the world now spending significantly more time at home, consumption, sharing, and engaging with digital media has only increased,” said Donovan Neale-May, executive director of the CMO Council.

“In many cases, digital media now singularly impacts buying decisions and how consumers feel about brands, only amplifying the importance of consistent messaging across media channels. Yet over half of the respondents agreed that when it comes to amplifying and aligning media strategies, there isn’t strong alignment between their teams.”
Other key survey findings include:

Nearly 2/3 brand leaders felt they’re effective at integrating and amplifying earned media to drive customer experience and engagement strategies
81% of brand leaders said the change in global business climate due to the pandemic has led to a definite rise in earned media efforts and importance
One out of five marketing leaders were dissatisfied with their earned media performance

“In order for organisations to achieve true integration between marketing and comms, they must first attain collaboration within the one constant both teams can agree upon: data. Both teams need to treat data as the source of truth and have someone with the skills to interpret that data as it relates to specific KPIs in order to understand progress and ROI,” said Maggie Lower, Cision’s chief marketing officer.

“Cision’s own partnership with The CMO Council validates the opportunities that can arise when PR and marketing work together.”

CMO Council, in partnership with Cision, will host a webinar - Shifting the Content Game - on 23 September to discuss the report findings in further detail. Learn more and register here.