The new CMO playbook: how marketers are balancing broader remits and tighter budgets

A recurring theme on and off stage at Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity this year was just how drastically the marketing job has changed. It’s no longer all about making great ads. Today’s marketing leaders are expected to understand AI, build communities, and shape organizational culture. As marketing leaders have taken on broader responsibilities, budgets have remained flat. Across the U.S. and Europe, businesses allocated an average of 7.7% of company revenue to marketing in 2025—the same as in 2024 and down from 9.5% in 2022, according to Gartner’s 2025 Global CMO Spend Survey. The representation of marketing heads in the C-suite is also declining. Less than half (49%) of Fortune 500 marketers held the “CMO” title in 2025, down from 55% a year earlier, according to research by Forrester. Separate research by leadership consulting firm Spencer Stuart found that a third of Fortune 500 marketing leaders did not have the word “chief” in their title, 16% carried dual-function titles such as chief marketing and communications officer, and 11% had no reference to marketing. UPS, for example, has grouped the leadership responsibilities for sales, marketing, and communications under the single role of chief commercial and strategy officer. Last year, Reckitt, the multinational consumer-goods company, folded marketing and commercial strategy into a single function and gave regional teams more power to build the brands in their own markets. Read more: Reddit COO targets 1 billion users as internet’s ‘odd duck’ aims for new heights “This was an explicit attempt to break down silos and push brand-building power out to local markets,” Ryan Dullea, Reckitt’s chief growth officer, tells Fortune. “We need to stop running brand and commercial strategy as separate disciplines if marketing is to be viewed as a continuous business function.” “The traditional CMO was a steward of creativity and communications, occa