CMOs face pressure from poor internal decision design

The Marketing Society and Ekimetrics have launched The CMO Tension Report, based on conversations with 14 chief marketing officers and business leaders across Asia-Pacific.

The study argues that the main source of pressure on senior marketers is internal organisational design, not external market disruption. Fragmented structures, misaligned key performance indicators, and unclear ownership across functions are making it harder for marketing leaders to make coherent decisions.

That finding shifts the debate around the chief marketing officer role. Rather than treating complexity as the result of technology change, consumer behaviour, or channel proliferation alone, the report frames it as a decision-making problem inside the business.

The research also points to a widening gap between corporate growth ambitions and what marketing teams can realistically deliver. Marketers now have access to more data and tools than ever, but many still lack clarity on how decisions should be made and who is accountable for outcomes.

Common pressures

Participants described a similar set of tensions across sectors and markets in the region. These include balancing short-term return on investment with long-term brand value, friction over measurement and ownership across departments, and uncertainty over how artificial intelligence is changing decision-making and accountability.

Leaders broadly see artificial intelligence as useful for improving efficiency, but not as a solution to deeper questions of governance and responsibility. In that sense, the spread of new tools may intensify existing weaknesses in organisational structure rather than resolve them.

The report also places marketing within a broader business shift. Senior marketers are increasingly expected to do more than lead execution and communications; they are now expected to contribute directly to growth strategy.

Sophie Devonshire, chief executive officer of The Marketing Society, outlined the organisation's view of the findings.

"At The Marketing Society, we've long held that marketing is the key driver of growth in business. And yet, when we talk to our members across the world, we keep hearing the same thing, that the biggest tension CMOs face is bridging the gap between the business's ambition to grow and the reality of delivering that growth. That tension plays out across multiple dimensions simultaneously - AI, creativity, measurement, ownership, short-term versus long-term - and in a region as vast and varied as APAC, every one of those dimensions is amplified. We brought together 14 marketers from 13 organisations to share how they are navigating this in their daily lives. What came through clearly is that the fundamentals of marketing remain constant. What is changing, and will keep changing, is how we apply them. This report exists to help the marketing community learn how to do exactly that," said Sophie Devonshire, Chief Executive Officer, The Marketing Society.

Decision framework

Ekimetrics, which partnered on the research, said the findings reinforce its view that marketing leadership increasingly depends on how companies connect short-term commercial demands with longer-term brand building.

Olivier Kuziner, Managing Partner APAC at Ekimetrics, said: "At Ekimetrics, we believe the defining leadership challenge for modern marketing is orchestrating short-term and long-term performance together through better decision making. That belief is what drew us to this research, and what the report confirms. The CMOs we spoke to across APAC are operating in an environment where data abundance, channel fragmentation, and performance culture have accelerated decision cycles, while shrinking patience for long-term returns. The risk, and we see it consistently, is organisations mistaking efficiency for effectiveness, and optimisation for transformation. Value comes from fixing the system; the measurement frameworks, the shared definitions of success, the cross-functional alignment. This report makes that case through the voices of leaders who are working through it in real time."

The emphasis on internal alignment may resonate with companies that have rapidly expanded their digital marketing tools while leaving decision rights spread across multiple teams. In many organisations, responsibility for data, brand, customer experience, media, and sales outcomes sits in different parts of the business, creating overlap and conflict.

By framing the issue in those terms, the report suggests the modern chief marketing officer role is shaped as much by internal negotiation and governance as by external competition. The challenge is not only to interpret data or deploy new technology, but also to secure shared definitions of success across functions.

The findings are based on input from 14 senior leaders representing 13 organisations across Asia-Pacific. The consistency of their accounts across markets and sectors points to a common operating problem for marketing leadership in the region.

The study argues that organisations need clearer decision-making frameworks, stronger cross-functional alignment, and a shared understanding of how marketing creates value over time. Without those conditions, pressure on chief marketing officers will remain rooted less in the volume of change outside the company than in how the company itself is set up to make decisions.