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CMO is passé...the age of the

CMTO is here!

R Ramasubramaniyan
Chief Brand Architect, Big Biking
Commune Pvt Ltd, Bangalore
rama@bigbikingcommune.com
IMDR Batch – 1986-88

The CMO or the Chief Marketing Officer has
held sway for a very long time now, overseeing
the marketing, communication mandate,
and spending for brands. They were the top
boss when it came to approving marketing
professionals (CMOs, Brand managers, Product
campaigns and budgets. The buck stopped at
managers, Category managers, and the many
their desk.
other avatars) clueless about how to handle
Not anymore, CMO is passé, the new age of this new digital animal.
marketing and communicating in a globally
What we are seeing is a ‘digitally challenged’
digital world calls for a new role, a new title,
community of brand communication
the - Chief Marketing Technology Officer –
professionals who have turned to technology
(CMTO)’.
professionals for help; now we have so-called
It means someone who understands digital communication experts who are guiding
marketing technology from a strategy brand our digitally challenged community through
perspective and not from an operational the technology-enabled marketing channel
perspective. And by Marketing Technology, I maze.
mean the digital and social media platforms
It has become the case of the ‘TAIL WAGGING
that are turning out to be at the core of the new
THE DOG’, which means that the tech team that
age ‘Go-to-market’ strategies.
does not understand the marketing, branding,
The power of the internet has made many and communication domain is now guiding
traditional platforms redundant (if not already,
most will become redundant in a few years from
now) as an increasing number of consumers
get hooked on the online world. Conversations
have moved online long ago and commerce
followed suit as well. With the rapid penetration
of internet-enabled headphones, we have a
whole new generation that has skipped the
desktop mode of engaging with the worldwide
web.
Technology is causing a big disruption in the
way brands can communicate and engage with
consumers. But this fast-changing landscape
is leaving many traditional marketing

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