The ‘Performance Era’ CMO Dilemma: James Hurman on Prioritizing Long-Term Brand Building

In a recent LinkedIn post, James Hurman delves into a critical paradox facing modern marketing leadership: the pervasive tendency for CMOs to prioritize short-term performance metrics over long-term brand building, despite understanding the latter’s importance. Hurman argues that this imbalance is not a failure of individual leadership but a systemic issue rooted in how marketing careers are structured and rewarded.

The Career Ladder’s Role in Short-Term Focus

Hurman points to the established career ladder within marketing as a key driver of this phenomenon. He suggests that individuals who excel in the quantifiable, short-term aspects of marketing are often the ones promoted into top leadership roles. This, in turn, conditions the entire marketing function to focus on harvesting existing demand rather than cultivating future markets.

As Hurman explains:

“If the people promoted into the top job are the ones who grew up in a performance era, becoming best at the countable, short-term half, the whole function gets tuned toward harvesting the demand that already exists, and away from building the demand that doesn’t yet.”

This focus on immediate results, while seemingly driven by accountability, comes at a significant cost, according to Hurman. He highlights research that demonstrates the synergistic relationship between brand building and performance marketing.

The Cost of Neglecting Long-Term Brand Investment

Drawing on industry studies, Hurman underscores the detrimental impact of starving brand-building initiatives to feed short-term performance goals. He references findings from WARC and Analytic Partners’ “The Multiplier Effect,” which indicate that brand and performance marketing efforts amplify each other.

According to Hurman:

“Starve the brand to feed performance, and you leave a large share of your total advertising return on the table.”

He further supports this by referencing the well-established “60/40 rule” popularized by marketing effectiveness experts Peter Field and Les Binet, which advocates for a balanced investment in long-term brand building and short-term sales activation.

The Need for Board-Level Legibility

Hurman acknowledges that the rise of the “performance CMO” is partly a response to legitimate demands for accountability from boards of directors. However, he posits that the challenge now lies in making the long-term aspects of marketing equally visible and understandable to these same governing bodies.

In James Hurman’s view:

“The task now is to make the long-term half of marketing as legible to the board as the short half already is.”

Until this legibility is achieved, Hurman concludes, the industry will likely continue to promote leaders based on their proficiency in the more easily measured, short-term components of marketing, potentially at the expense of sustainable, long-term growth. He also shared that the full Lippincott study offers further valuable insights.