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Too often, CEOs and CMOs are not aligned on marketing’s role. Is it because they are speaking in synonyms, both saying “marketing” but meaning different things?

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“Marketing is everything and everything is marketing.”

This is both an objective truth about today’s business landscape, and the title of a 1991 book (and HBR article) by Regis McKenna that, over 30 years later, is remarkably prescient and still wildly relevant.

But if everything really is marketing—what then exactly is “marketing”? At a time when marketing’s commercial relevance generally, and the CMO’s specifically, is being questioned by many a CEO and CFO, is there value in considering what it is they’re questioning, and what they mean when they say “marketing”? Is their definition the same as their CMO’s?

It turns out, probably not.

According to a recent McKinsey survey “CEOs and CMOs aren’t always on the same page about the primary role of marketing in their companies,” with the research finding that only 50% of same-company CEOs and CMOs see the role the same way.

While not news to the CMOs living it, the data begs the question of why it’s this way and raises the specter that CMOs and CEOs—who rarely come from marketing’s ranks—are speaking in synonyms, both saying “marketing” but meaning different things. This is a bad thing 100% of the time.

As rudimentary as asking “what is marketing?” may seem, there’s always value in interrogating our default assumptions and definitions to see if they still hold true, or don’t. Especially in times of seismic change, and the past decade+ has been that for marketing and chief marketers both.

So then, what is marketing? And how do marketers define it?

According to the American Marketing Association, whose definition was codified in 2017:

“Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.”

Me, I don’t know what this means; the definition complicates (arguably, obfuscates) but doesn’t clarify. If this is how a trade group billing itself as “the essential community for marketers” defines the practice, perhaps it’s no surprise so many CMOs and CEOs aren’t on the same page about it.

Webster’s Dictionary gets a lot closer than the AMA, offering succinctly that marketing is:

“The activity or business of promoting and selling products or services.”

But having died in 1843, Mr. Webster never had to promote or sell anything in today’s commercial landscape. So, again, wondering what might have changed and what endures, I asked a small group of CMOs, from a diversity of categories, how they define marketing.

Perhaps not surprisingly—and certainly reassuringly—there was a lot of consistency, and even if the words used are different, one common perspective emerged among their answers:

Marketing is the practice of creating and capturing customer demand to drive enterprise growth. While that’s my synthesis of what was shared in this non-scientific study, here’s how nine much lauded CMOs define “marketing,” in their words, presented alphabetically (Note: some quotes have been edited lightly for brevity):

• “Marketing is about demand creation and demand capture…(it is) a lot like campaigning. (People) “vote” when they use our services – every day is election day.” ~ Jonathan Adashek, Chief Marketing and Communications Officer, IBM
• “(Marketing is about) understanding customers deeply, leveraging that understanding and empathy to build better products to solve their problems, and more resonant campaigns that convert better – to ultimately drive incremental growth and engagement.” ~ Kofi Amoo-Gottfried, CMO, DoorDash
• “Connecting with your target’s needs or desires and convincing them your brand is best aligned with them.” ~ Eugenia Blackstone, CMO, Iris Powered by Generali
• “(Marketing is) a critical component of a company’s growth strategy. Marketing drives revenue growth by deeply understanding customers, building reputation and trust in brands, and delivering customer acquisition, engagement, and retention.” ~ Lara Hood Balazs, EVP, GM and CMO, Intuit
• “(Marketing is about) growth; influencing our target audience to choose our products and services is the core of what we do and spans both art and science.” ~ Soyoung Kang, CMO, EOS Products
• “Marketing is the orchestration of your target’s exposure to, engagement, interaction and experience with your product/brand with the objective of creating a set of thoughts and feelings about your product/brand that will impact purchase decision-making.” ~ Janet Lee, SVP and CMO, Samsung Electronics America
• “(Marketing is) the art and science of deeply understanding your audience and the problem your brand can uniquely solve for them, then connecting with that audience to engage them in your solution in such a way that it drives them to adopt or purchase.” ~ Micky Onurval, SEVP and Chief Marketing and Communications Officer, TIAA
• “Marketing is the art and science of getting people interested in your company and whatever it is selling. Marketing fuels brand desire and drives growth by being the voice of the customer to the company and the voice of the company to the customer.” ~ Dara Treseder, CMO, Autodesk
• “The role of marketing is to create demand, build customer loyalty, and strengthen brand equity.” ~ William White, CMO, Walmart

While the commonality within this small group is as above reassuring, what matters more than any singular definition is that CMOs and their C-suite colleagues align around and share a common definition—whatever it is. Speaking in synonyms, using the same word(s) but meaning different things without realizing it, leaves us sure we’re communicating when we’re not.

Without a shared definition and starting point there is far less likelihood to be any shared success. Because as Lewis Carroll wrote, “if you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there.”

(Let me know in the comments how you see and define “marketing”. Are there important differences of opinion? Nuances and distinctions you think matter broadly?)

Afraid of overspending on holiday gifts? Set a budget.
By Daniel de Visé | USA Today
“Don’t just set a number,” said marketing professor and retail expert Roger Beahm. “I suggest building a budget from the bottom up, by listing the people you expect to buy gifts for and estimating how much you expect to spend on those people.” Once you have a budget, move those funds into a separate account, so you “know what you’re working with.” – 11/25/2023

‘Dupes’ clothing, perfume craze lures holiday shoppers as major brands fret
By Katherine Masters | Reuters
Experts say the current excitement over dupes traces back to the start of fast fashion. Inditex-owned Zara, which opened its first store in 1975, made a business of replicating luxury designs. Its shorter production cycles allowed more styles to enter the market quickly, sparking “the habit of shopping more frequently,” said Ian Taplin, a sociology and international studies professor at Wake Forest. – 11/20/2023

Some protection against infidelity? How about perspective-taking
By Christian Miller | Forbes
“Cheating in monogamous relationships is prevalent these days. Depending on how ‘infidelity’ is defined, studies have found the percentage of adults reporting some form of infidelity to range from 20% to as high as 70%. And things do not show any signs of getting better,” writes philosophy professor Christian Miller. “Fortunately new research suggests a way to help fight against temptations to cheat: adopting the perspective of one’s significant other.” – 11/22/2023

Kennedy photos 60 years after assassination
Mirage News
On November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was shot and killed as he rode in his motorcade in downtown Dallas, Texas. In 2003, forty years after the assassination, art professor David Lubin published the book “Shooting Kennedy,” where he explores iconic images of Kennedy and his family and how these photographs shined a light on the American cultural landscape of the time. For the 60th anniversary of the shooting of President Kennedy, Lubin answers questions on the power of the images of the First Family then and now. – 11/21/2023

Prediction markets can tell the future. Why is the US so afraid of them?
By Oliver Roeder | Financial Times
According to a paper by Koleman Strumpf, “Betting in the run-up to elections was a cherished ritual. A widely held value was that one should be prepared to ‘back one’s beliefs’ either with money or more creative dares.” These included the loser literally eating crow, or pushing the winner around in a wheelbarrow. – 11/10/2023

Enviva, the world’s largest biomass energy company, is near collapse
By Justin Catanoso | Mongabay
“This year has been a financial disaster for Enviva, the world’s largest producer of wood pellets for the biomass energy industry. With more than $250 million in losses to date and worsening results expected in the fourth quarter, the once high-flying company’s viability, by its own admission, is in grave doubt,” writes journalism professor Justin Catanoso, a regular contributor to Mongabay. – 11/21/2023

NY AG’s plastic bottle suit called both innovative, overreach
By Sarah Jarvis | Law360
Law professor Sarah Morath is quoted extensively in this news article about the NY AG lawsuit against Pepsi-Co. for plastic pollution. – 11/17/2023

Why was a human skull on sale at a Florida thrift shop?
By Sarah Kuta | Smithsonian Magazine
“There is actually very little federal law regarding the dead,” writes law professor Tanya Marsh who specializes in laws involving human remains. “Instead, the vast majority of law respecting the dead is state law, which varies significantly.” – 11/21/2023

Pollution is displacing Black midwesterners. White homeowners are profiting.
By Adam Mahoney | In These Times
This story was originally published by Capital B and is the fourth installment of a yearlong Capital B series on the country’s current Black migration, the most significant movement of Black people in the United States in 50 years. It was made possible, in part, by a grant from the Environmental and Epistemic Justice Initiative at Wake Forest University. – 11/24/2023

Politics gears up for momentous 2024
By Paul B. Johnson | High Point Enterprise
Republican presidential nominees have carried North Carolina since Obama’s triumph 15 years ago, though the races have been competitive. Politics professor John Dinan said “North Carolina has clearly joined the ranks of states that are competitive in presidential elections. It is now one of about six to eight states that will attract significant advertising from presidential candidates in both parties.” – 11/25/2023

Naughty or nice? Triad shoppers expected to spend more, give less this season.
By Richard Craver | Greensboro News & Record
Local consumers may be shopping “more cautiously” this year, predicted marketing professor Roger Beahm. “First, inflation has reduced what shoppers can get for the dollars they are spending. This, in turn, prompts them to be more cautious in various ways: what they buy, where they buy, when they buy and even how they pay.” – 11/20/2023

Wake Forest students feed the community through Turkeypalooza
By Zyneria Byrd | Spectrum News Charlotte
The smell of stuffing and sweet potatoes filled the air inside the Campus Kitchen of Wake Forest University as they cooked more than 600 meals. “For the menu this week, we’ll have turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, cranberry sauce and then vegetables as a side,” said Raahim Khan, student coordinator of Campus Kitchen. This was the 17th annual Turkeypalooza event. – 11/22/2023

WFU names Brandon Gilliland senior VP for finance & administration
By Cheryl V. Walker | Wake Forest News
Wake Forest University has named Brandon Gilliland senior vice president for finance and administration, effective January 1. Gilliland returns to Wake Forest after serving for the past six years as vice president and chief financial officer at the University of Miami. He previously served at Wake Forest from 2007 to 2017, rising to the position of vice president for finance. – 11/20/2023

This announcement was also shared in the Winston-Salem Journal.

“Oh wow, that looks amazing!”

A driver offers praise to the Texas Woman’s University mural painting students, stopping to look at the northern side of the now-empty Marketing and Communications building on Oakland.

A dozen TWU students stand, squat and stretch to dab paint onto the stucco wall. The man behind the wheel grins at TWU staffers who have gathered in the parking lot, across Third Street. The art students started to transform the stained, blank 70-by-17-foot wall on Oct. 7.

Leo Gonzalez

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Texas Woman’s University

The emerging mural is a riot of color and metaphor — Oakley the owl, Minerva the Pioneer Woman, the Little Chapel in-the-Woods and a collection of symbols, color and motion.

Giovanni Valderas, the professor who leads the mural class, said the class conducted the project like a formal public art proposal. Four teams submitted requests for proposals, mural designs and budgets. A panel selected the winning design. The whole class has been painting it.

“I think the best thing about it has been that they have really worked together, and they’ve gotten to know each other,” Valderas said. “And they’ve learned some really important things through this. They’ve learned that when you’re an artist, you can’t always be too precious about your work.”

Diane Cox, a sophomore studio art major who is back at TWU for a second time after serving as a U.S. military nurse in Afghanistan, designed the winning mural.

“It wasn’t too good in those first efforts,” she said. “The process was really good, though. Gio was very direct. If something wasn’t working, he said so, and helped us understand why.”

Rheyna Antoine, a senior studio art major in the class, said she found the process challenging, but found the project satisfying.

“Usually when you’re doing painting and drawing, you’re working on your own, so it’s been really good, really interesting to do a project like this where you work with other people, and you come up with an idea as a team,” she said.

The painters said they know that the mural might be provocative to some people — especially the Pride rainbow, the African kente cloth and the Mexican milagro that frame the top of the Little Chapel in-the-Woods. The books in the mural communicate that TWU supports the freedom of inquiry and reference the artists’ objection to book bans in American public and school libraries.

“We understand that some people might get offended,” Antoine said. “There is a lot going on right now, with certain states, like Florida, making laws about how history can be taught, and teaching that slavery benefited the slaves. We’ve talked about it.”

Senior Felicity Sanders said the class talked about what university leaders wanted, as well — a mural that seconds the recent ”Dream Big” campaign, which aims to raise $125 million for the university’s 125th anniversary. But the campaign is also a celebration of the diversity at TWU.

Leo Gonzalez

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Texas Woman’s University

“We wanted to do something that recognizes all of the different cultures and identities on campus,” Sanders said. “TWU is a place for everyone.”

Senior Flor Bejar and Sanders said the mural has taught the class about the reality of creating a mural, which often means changing techniques and designs after the project gets started.

“You just don’t know what’s going to happen until you start,” Bejar said.

The class had to clean the wall, then prime it. Valderas said the stucco wall soaked up several coats of primer, and the artists are having to press the paint onto the wall.

Colby Parsons, the interim dean of the TWU Department of Visual Arts, said the mural marks an important moment for art students.

“I’m impressed with what they’ve been able to accomplish together,” he said. “I’ve been here for 27 years. I don’t know if this mural is a first, other than the brick murals. But I haven’t seen a project like this here.”

Valderas said he has listened as students give voice to what they hope will be enduring inspiration for students and for the people who live in the nearby neighborhood.

“I know that, sometimes, I’ll be driving to campus and I’ll be so tired,” Cox said. “Sometimes, I find myself saying, ‘Can I keep doing this?’ But I get here and it’s like, yes, I can do this.

“I like to think that other students like me will see this and know that, no matter where they come from or what they’re going through, they can get through school. That they can look at this mural and see themselves in it and know that. You know? That they look at this, see themselves and know that someone else did it.”