What keeps chief marketing officers up at night? 

Marketing officers have a lot to worry about these days.   

Concerns about return  on investment,  big data and security issues and establishing trust between the brand and consumers top the list of concerns keeping marketers up at night, according a survey conducted by brand engagement and customer loyalty research consultancy  Brand Keys.  At the same time, marketing professionals must deal with such other issues as brand values infused with political dogma and the need to accommodate emerging technologies such as AI.

In the “Marketing on Mind” survey, Brand Keys asked 558 CMOs and brand managers, “What issues keep you up at night?” The top “marketing nightmares”  (or problems areas that received mentions by 75% of the participants) are below:

1. ROI and ROMI (97%)


2. Big data, big tech, and big security issues (95%)


3. Establishing trust between my brand the consumer (95%)


4. Addressing innovation, AI, technology, and marketing automation (92%)


5. Consumer expectations regarding privacy and transparency (90%)


6. Better managing social networking (89%)


7. Creating relevant and engaging advertising content and storytelling (88%)


8. Deployment of predictive consumer behavior analytics and technologies (86%)


9. Dealing with consumer advocacy, social activism like #MeToo & issues like gun violence


10. Growing consumer expectations and gap between brand promise and expectations (82%)


11. Developing a long-term strategy that aligns with corporate growth goals (80%)


12. Ability to engage my audiences, not just identify and find them (80%)


13. The democratization of the digital world and protecting my brand’s equity (79%)


14. Political Tribalism and how it affects my brand (77%)


15. Being relevant and tweeted, not just tweeted (75%)


16. Keeping consumers engaged with my brand (75%)


17. Create better cross-platform synergy for my marketing campaigns (75%)


18. Being replaced by a Chief Revenue Officer (75%)


19. Creating an ‘unlearning curve’ to move away from legacy marketing metrics (75%)


20. Creating marketing synergy among different generational age cohorts (75%)