2025 CMO Priorities: Top 5 Focus Areas from the CMO Council Survey
According to the newly released 2025 CMO Council Global Member Survey, five content areas stand out as most appealing to marketing leaders across the globe:
🔹 𝗠𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗲𝗰𝗵 & 𝗗𝗶𝗴𝗶𝘁𝗮𝗹 𝗧𝗿𝗮𝗻𝘀𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗺𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 (𝗶𝗻𝗰𝗹𝘂𝗱𝗲𝘀 𝗔𝗜 𝗶𝗻𝘃𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁)
🔹 𝗟𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗽 & 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗳𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗗𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗹𝗼𝗽𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁
🔹 𝗥𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗻𝘂𝗲 & 𝗚𝗿𝗼𝘄𝘁𝗵
🔹 𝗕𝗿𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗔𝗱𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘁𝗶𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗴
🔹 𝗗𝗮𝘁𝗮 𝗠𝗮𝗻𝗮𝗴𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 & 𝗜𝗻𝘀𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁𝘀
These themes are more than just buzzwords — they reflect the evolving role of the CMO. As marketing becomes increasingly data-driven and tech-enabled, understanding how to leverage martech and lead digital transformation is critical. At the same time, CMOs are expected to deliver measurable business outcomes, which is why content focused on growth strategies, revenue impact, and brand equity is so valuable.
Leadership development also stands tall, as modern CMOs must inspire cross-functional teams, influence the C-suite, and build marketing cultures that can adapt quickly. Underpinning it all is the effective use of data for analytics and driving customer personalisation, efficiency, and customer intelligence in real time.
If you're a marketer, these are the areas shaping the future.
Are your content and capability investments aligned with them?
𝗥𝗲𝘀𝗽𝗼𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗜𝗻𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗺𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻: Nearly 200 respondents from all major regional geographies participated in the online survey. The vast majority hold chief officer titles, as well as SVP, VP and director of marketing. Nearly 40% represented B2B companies, 24% B2C, and 36% hybrid.
𝗥𝗲𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁 𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗸: https://www.cmocouncil.org/thought-leadership/reports/2025-cmo-council-global-member-findings
𝗠𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝗮𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝗖𝗠𝗢 𝗖𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗰𝗶𝗹: The CMO Council is a dynamic, decades-old global hub for chief marketing officer engagement, knowledge sharing, networking, and best/next practice adoption. Founded in 2003, it is an international executive affinity network of 16,500 chief marketing decision makers in 10,000 companies worldwide. Collectively, CMO Council members control nearly $1 trillion in annual, aggregated marketing spend
