CMOs are confronting AI fatigue by refocusing on human creativity and trust. As automation accelerates, leaders are rebalancing efficiency with authenticity to restore credibility and performance.

Citibank is undertaking a major brand refresh through a bold new marketing strategy aimed at boosting relevance and customer engagement. Chief Marketing and Content Officer Alex Craddock outlined a comprehensive overhaul, including hiring specialized marketing talent, unifying wealth management services, and building a new brand platform targeting globally minded “change-makers.” The bank is shifting toward a data-driven, personalized approach using genAI and enhanced cross-channel content. Rather than incremental changes, Citi is reimagining its entire strategy to deliver more impactful, client-focused messaging—signaling a major pivot to a modern, cohesive, and insight-led marketing future aligned with its global presence.

In this report, CMOs share how they’re transforming influencer strategies to deliver business impact—and what solution providers can do to help.

A lot happens in a week, so every Friday we're going to analyze all the new data and provide you with some of the key takeaways. Welcome to the Friday 5.

Hy-Vee promotes head of retail media to be CMO: The fast-growing sector is providing a new path to corporate leadership.

As marketing becomes more directly tied to revenue goals, the ability to measure and report on its impact has declined. Some of that can be attributed to signal loss as the industry moves away from third-party tracking to more privacy-safe identifiers. Today’s audiences are also spread across multiple channels and devices. This makes it harder to track the customer journey and attribute results to specific marketing efforts.

CMOs are mastering brand bravery to stand out in competitive markets. Through bold strategies, innovative campaigns, and authentic storytelling, they balance daring moves with trust and integrity. In this report, four leading CMOs share how they transform risks into impactful brand actions.

37% of AI initiatives in the UK and US are run by the CMO or another executive, and 26% by a marketing operations team, per a November report from Invoca.

The martech landscape is shifting from prompt-based AI to more sophisticated autonomous systems. Agentic AI—artificial intelligence that can independently execute tasks, make decisions, and learn from interactions—represents a significant evolution in how marketing teams can operate and scale their efforts.

The top B2B marketing trends in 2025 include AI-driven insights, first-party data strategies, and balancing automation with authenticity. In this report, marketers and agencies can learn how to embrace these evolving strategies in order to boost engagement, trust, and ROI.

"We would not have re-accelerated our revenue in the last two years if it was not for AI," Alex Schultz, CMO and vice president of analytics at Meta, said on our "Behind the Numbers" podcast. "It's that important to us. We wouldn't have recovered from AppTracking transparency [or] been able to do more with less data if it wasn't for AI. So that's the very core of our business."

CMOs are often the first people facing pressure to cut spend in a challenging economy. Marketers need to be able to trim budgets in a way that doesn’t thin out the brand. “A common approach we see during these economic downturns is to cut those upper-funnel tactics…but I really believe this is very shortsighted,” said Laura Brooks, fractional CMO at Made by Nacho, during our recent EMARKETER Summit.

40% of senior marketers worldwide say their CFO is most skeptical of marketing’s value at their company, according to data from Gartner.

CMOs and brand strategists are using generative AI-powered tools to enhance their advertising and media strategies. Marketing teams can harness this technology in six key ways to drive results.

CMOs are using AI tools to transform marketing by enhancing creativity, optimizing campaigns, and streamlining operations. AI will shape marketing's future, but strategic implementation, data privacy, and bias remain hurdles for widespread adoption.

The most important objective for a CMO is balancing short- and long-term goals in an environment that’s pushing to demonstrate short-term success, Julie Bowerman, CMO at Kellanova North America, said at the Zeta Live ‘24 conference last week.

We spoke with four CMOs on their approaches to data management, communication, and fostering a culture of innovation to maximize marketing effectiveness.

59% of executives worldwide say CTOs are the leaders responsible for driving generative AI (genAI) strategy, according to April 2024 data by Google Cloud and the National Research Group.

Top US advertisers have seen their CMOs’ tenures shrink from nearly four years to three years over the past decade, according to April 2024 Spencer Stuart research. This decline stems from increased public scrutiny, pressure to drive revenue growth, and an ever-expanding set of responsibilities.

On today's podcast episode, we discuss the reason why CMOs at top US advertisers are leaving their roles sooner, the main ways the role is changing, and how GenAI is helping them with their jobs. Tune in to the discussion with host Marcus Johnson, director of Briefings Jeremy Goldman and analyst Kelsey Voss.