Why The Best Marketers Don’t Just Build Campaigns. They Shape Businesses
Ana Lynch
One of my favourite sessions at the Cairns Crocodiles this year was hearing Jon Evans from The Uncensored CMO podcast speak.
What makes Jon so compelling is the sheer volume of conversations he’s had with some of the world’s best marketers. He has a unique lens into what CMOs everywhere are thinking, struggling with and ultimately prioritising right now.
Top 3 themes he highlighted as top of mind for most CMOs right now that really stuck with me:
1. Everyone is being asked to grow with less.
The pressure on marketers to deliver immediate results on smaller budgets is pushing many organisations into short term thinking. As Jon pointed out, most brands are optimising for now despite overwhelming evidence that balancing short and long term investment is what actually drives growth.
Ironically, when everyone else goes short, the opportunity is often to go long.
2. Strategy is becoming the only real differentiator.
In a world where AI can generate content, frameworks and outputs at speed, strategic thinking becomes even more valuable. Not AI-generated strategy, but genuinely original thinking grounded in customer understanding, commercial acumen and vision.
The best marketers aren’t just executing campaigns they’re shaping where the business is headed next.
3. Internal politics may be the most underrated marketing skill.
One of the biggest barriers to great marketing isn’t creativity or capability it’s getting the right ideas through the organisation. Navigating stakeholders, aligning teams and influencing decision makers is increasingly becoming a core leadership capability for CMOs.
Jon also made a point that really stayed with me: CMOs are uniquely positioned to become CEOs, yet very few make the leap.
Why? Because marketers often undersell themselves in the boardroom. We talk about campaigns instead of commercial outcomes. Creativity instead of business transformation.
The marketers who stand out and the ones Jon sees succeeding globally behave more like founders. They stay obsessively close to customers, create a clear vision for growth and unite organisations around it.
For agencies, that’s a powerful reminder too. Our role is not just delivering outputs it’s helping CMOs navigate complexity, build influence internally and create the kind of strategic clarity that puts their organisations in a position of strength. The best agency partnerships today are the ones helping marketing leaders not just perform, but lead.
