This summer, Dentsu’s 2024 CMO survey, which questioned over 950 senior marketers in the UK, US and other key markets, revealed a substantially renewed confidence in creativity among the cohort. Music to the ears of any creative agency for sure.

But before we settle in for a return to the halcyon days of advertising, it’s vital to understand the context. The CMO role today looks nothing like it once did. Unrelenting pressure to deliver financially has led many to shift from traditional brand-building toward ROI-friendly performance marketing. Any new-found appreciation of creativity therefore has to be understood in this context: only those creative ideas that are genuinely business-driven will land with today’s CMOs.

Creative focused on the bottom line

Gone are the days when being a successful marketing leader meant ‘just’ being a marketing expert. Instead, marketers who want to survive and thrive today have to be exceptional strategic business leaders - driving growth, leading cross-functional teams, and rapidly adapting to and embracing new tech - all the while navigating an extremely fast-changing cultural landscape.

It’s against this backdrop that Forsman & Bodenfors London launched Forsman Fusion, a monthly conversation ‘across the aisle’, between one senior marketer and one of our agency leaders. Together we chat about marketing as a powerful engine for growth, the role of memorable advertising in creating distinction and its intersection with design, innovation, and strategy to grow meaningfully different brands.

Adaptability in the face of change

So why do we think the industry needs another Podcast? I guess it all comes down to the ‘across the aisle’ bit. In an era defined by dramatic technological advancements, shifting consumer expectations, and economic uncertainty, the relationship between marketing leaders and their creative agency partners is rapidly transforming. These partnerships, once characterised by a straightforward service-provider dynamic, now more than ever benefit from a deeper, more collaborative approach - one that’s rooted in mutual understanding. Trust, communication, and shared vision are now critical to success, a sentiment echoed by Forsman Fusion’s first guest, former Tesco and KFC marketer Rich Hall, who began his career agency-side at JWT. As Rich put it, “It’s about having empathy for the partners that you're working with, understanding the internal pressures and the time scales that they’re having to manage but also having a genuine healthy respect for their expertise. All this is needed if you’re going to build healthy, collaborative, commercially important relationships together.”

This notion of respect for where each other is coming from isn’t only highly desirable, it’s also business-critical. In a volatile environment, CMOs and agencies often need to pivot quickly: a strong relationship ensures open lines of communication and reduces friction during what are often crucial moments of decision-making. Having a solid partnership allows for adaptability, enabling both parties to respond effectively to real-time challenges or crises.

A kaleidoscopic perspective

The ability to truly understand the customer, and translate that into business direction and goal-setting should make the best marketing directors an incredibly valuable interface between the marketplace and the company.  Yet the function is still often undervalued in the board room. Hall believes much of the responsibility lies with marketers themselves, challenging them to demonstrate exactly what marketing can bring to the table in terms of strategic input. As he put it, “Marketers should be the absolute champion and voice of the customer first and foremost … but I also ultimately believe marketing should be a growth engine within an organisation – this is what the intersection of commerciality and creativity looks like.”

Unlocking growth through partnership

Creative agencies increasingly operate at that same commerciality and creativity juncture - aesthetic brilliance and catchy taglines are pointless if they’re not born of a laser focus on growing a client's bottom line. While the creativity and artistry of advertising will always be essential, we’re deeply aware of the need to balance the art of storytelling with the science of analytics - crafting campaigns that are not only memorable but also measurable.

In short, if brands are to unlock their full potential, CMOs and creative agencies need to lean into true partnership. But sometimes that first means actively working to bridge the gaps in our relationships. Only by fostering mutual understanding and embracing a collaborative mindset can we together create partnerships that drive both brand equity and business results. 

Forsman Fusion is our chance to carve out half an hour to talk frankly with brand marketers about all these issues; to get into our shared weeds a little, as it were. Thank you to Rich Hall for joining us as our first guest - next up former HSBC marketer Katherine Lamb, now over at Kraken doing amazing things, followed up by Google’s Sophie Neary. Expect a meeting of marketing minds!