Because the yr 2024 involves an finish, I’m trying again and eager about what a marketer’s calendar seemed like. Given the tempo of tradition, it’s measured much less in months, days, and weeks, and extra in hours. But there are moments and occasions that anchor a lot model exercise, from the Tremendous Bowl, to the Olympics, sports activities playoffs to award exhibits. In the meantime, there are the fixed cultural moments created by an always-on viewers that manufacturers are each excited and terrified by. Oh, after which there was a significant U.S. election and the continued rise of AI. Fairly mellow yr, all informed, proper?
The position of the chief advertising and marketing officer is ever-evolving, and infrequently bespoke to the corporate and types with which they work. However the job has develop into extra difficult, and it’s a vital linchpin to industrial progress and success. With a purpose to succeed, advertising and marketing execs should constantly straddle the rising assortment of media and platforms to raise their manufacturers’ cultural resonance, and connect with audiences.
We lately introduced our inaugural Brands That Matter CMOs of the Year list, so there could also be nobody higher to speak to than these advertising and marketing execs on the prime of their recreation. I requested 9 of them about classes from the previous yr, points to face within the coming yr, and what would be the greatest growth or shift entrepreneurs and types can count on in 2025.
Classes from 2024
“Belief is every thing, and the advantages of belief compound exponentially. Our DoorDash-All-The-Advertisements marketing campaign benefited from a very excessive degree of belief, developed at warp velocity and in real-time. Provided that it was novel, we needed to belief that we might pull it off, the enterprise needed to belief that it will ship, and we needed to belief each advertiser within the Tremendous Bowl with our thought and have them do the identical with us—versus the usual follow of everybody holding their playing cards extremely near the vest. When unsure, belief.” —DoorDash CMO Kofi Amoo-Gottfried
“Pondering expansively, pushing the boundaries and stretching the boundaries. Nobody matches into anybody field. You may love purple lipstick and heavy metallic, you may excel at STEM and be a sports activities fan, you might be purpose-led and outcomes pushed. My vocabulary facilities round ‘and’ and ‘all,’ not ‘or’. And that’s how we’re fueling our disruptive advertising and marketing engine, increasing our unaided model consciousness from 13% in 2020 to 33% in 2024. The progress we’re making is outstanding and the e.l.f.ing restrict doesn’t exist.” —E.l.f. Magnificence CMO Kory Marchisotto
“Due to the divisiveness within the nation, there was a variety of concern and concern coming from entrepreneurs about speaking something which may come off as political or leaning one course or one other. I feel all of us discovered the manufacturers that stayed according to their core values gained out. On the NFL, we selected to not abandon or shrink our core packages that have been targeted on being a power for good, and in the end, we are going to come out of 2024 with a stronger model.” —Nationwide Soccer League CMO Tim Ellis
“This yr we noticed that focus actually issues. Too typically as manufacturers we attempt to be all issues to all individuals and miss the fantastic thing about focus. The simplicity in doing a number of issues in extraordinary methods made a big distinction in our skill to interrupt by, resonate deeply, however extra importantly, truly make significant change across the points we targeted on. Whether or not these have been buyer experiences, product enhancements, or advertising and marketing platforms we cared about like continuous change within the house of ladies’s sports activities. Our focus allowed deeper ranges of funding, a extra concentrated presence and extra authenticity in our actions.” —Ally Monetary CMO Andrea Brimmer
Most vital difficulty of 2025
“There’s this fascinating pressure between change being arduous and one thing that people are psychologically averse to, and working a high-growth enterprise inside the context of the dramatically accelerated technological, financial, and societal shifts we’ve seen over the previous few years. So, in some ways, I consider probably the most important problem is constructing a resilient, agile, and inventive group that may adapt and evolve on the tempo of tradition, and to do that with out shedding a way of ourselves or what we’re attempting to perform.” —DoorDash CMO Kofi Amoo-Gottfried
“We are going to proceed to strike the suitable stability between leaning into technical improvements and data-powered advertising and marketing with excessive creativity and dealing to make individuals actually really feel one thing from our communications. It’s by no means been so necessary to encourage and drive towards emotional storytelling. With growing give attention to efficiencies and advertising and marketing attribution for each greenback spent, we have to have the braveness to proceed to create high-impact advertising and marketing that may break by and obtain an emotional reference to our followers.” —Nationwide Soccer League CMO Tim Ellis
“Essentially the most important difficulty subsequent yr will proceed to be the relentless tempo of expertise evolution—notably AI—and the stress to implement extra holistically throughout the advertising and marketing ecosystem. AI is infiltrating actually each facet of promoting from artistic growth, to shopper segmentation, to course of and operations. The stress to select up the tempo, discover actual efficiencies and drive nice worth by no means abates for entrepreneurs. These that aren’t quickly ideating and implementing round AI will begin to get left behind—‘wait and see’ just isn’t a mode we might be in anymore. I consider the stress for larger adoption and utilization might be important for entrepreneurs.” —Ally Monetary CMO Andrea Brimmer
“The social panorama is evolving: adjustments in possession of platforms, the regulatory panorama, even threats of platforms getting banned altogether. In fact, it’s pushed our advertising and marketing crew to adapt, add new platforms to our combine, and discover the up and coming areas. However the creativity that bubbles up on these platforms is an enormous inspiration for me and the work I lead. Tapping into the collective storytelling in these areas helps me perceive what persons are enthusiastic about, and it helps me take into consideration how you can join with our viewers. If these platforms have been to go away, it will be a loss to the broader artistic group.” —Tubi CMO Nicole Parlapiano
“Expertise. Right this moment, entrepreneurs must be tech-savvy, information savvy, financially savvy and advertising and marketing savvy within the conventional sense. Proper- and left-brained thinkers. That is very arduous to search out, and crucial factor we will do as leaders. And, for our present groups, it’s important that we give attention to upskilling and reskilling in order that they’re outfitted to navigate an ever-complex world. Our persons are the brains, and the center, behind every thing that we do.” —Mastercard CMO Raja Rajamannar
Greatest 2025 growth for entrepreneurs
“AI will proceed to be an enormous deal, not simply because it is going to change how we work, however as a result of it is going to put a premium on growing and delivering actually authentic creativity. Adequate content material and storytelling might be commoditized and not ok to drive differentiation, which would require us all to search out that subsequent gear.” —DoorDash CMO Kofi Amoo-Gottfried
“There’s no query that each marketer is now targeted on how you can handle the alternatives with AI. Like every new technological innovation, we are going to all want to find out how you can harness its energy and potential, with out permitting it to mute or reduce large new concepts and creativity. We will definitely do every thing we will to benefit from the alternatives with AI because it pertains to velocity, distribution of messages and information, however we can even proceed to embrace large, daring concepts which can be actually new and progressive.” —NFL CMO Tim Ellis
“We’ve got entered a interval of fixed change and disruption, which creates a gap for progressive and fearless entrepreneurs. The fast tempo of recent expertise supplies an amazing alternative for enhanced advertising and marketing campaigns, extra customized messaging and extra cutting-edge efforts throughout all advertising and marketing mediums, however entrepreneurs should embrace innovation and be unafraid within the face of change.” —Disney chief brand officer Asad Ayaz
“The tradition chasm will proceed to widen and navigating cultural relevance might be trickier than ever for manufacturers and entrepreneurs. We’re witnessing unprecedented adjustments in shopper sentiment, angle and conduct. The political and societal divide is shifting in extremely bifurcated instructions The notion of exhibiting up in tradition, so central to model relevance the final a number of years, is turning into extra complicated to outline. Many manufacturers will battle and get it flawed in 2025, underscoring the significance of authenticity in every model motion and alignment with what shareholders, staff and prospects count on out of your model.” —Ally Monetary CMO Andrea Brimmer
“In our sector, subsequent yr presents a double-helix dilemma. It’s the primary yr for the reason that pandemic when releases might be again to capability, whereas on the identical time persons are attending fewer motion pictures. The competitors to face above and aside with each title might be intense.” —Common Footage CMO Michael Moses
“Generative AI will proceed to be a sizzling subject as entrepreneurs decide how they’ll thoughtfully apply it, not solely to make processes extra environment friendly, but additionally in an try to personalize content material. I’m energized and enthusiastic about what we’re doing at American Specific, as we give attention to how you can use Gen AI to make our colleagues extra productive, improve information safety, and enhance many experiences for our prospects.” —American Specific CMO Elizabeth Rutledge
“We started with AI, progressed to Generative AI, and at the moment are coming into the subsequent transformative part: agentic AI. That is the sport changer. Not like conventional or Generative AI, the place you ask for solutions after which act on them your self, agentic AI takes care of every thing—from offering suggestions to executing duties in your behalf. For example, as a substitute of merely suggesting the perfect flight choices, the AI agent will ebook them for you.
This shift has profound implications for the comfort of customers, as they delegate decision-making to AI. For entrepreneurs, it’s crucial to adapt, stay related and discover methods to combine into this evolving buy funnel. Manufacturers should guarantee they’re the popular model—not just for customers however for his or her AI brokers.” —Mastercard CMO Raja Rajamannar