How marketers shape growth

This first article delves into the ways CMOs identify growth opportunities and articulate the brand's role within their strategy. The upcoming second article will discuss balancing long-term brand equity with short-term results, and the third and final section will focus on the evolving role of media, examining how organizations engage with customers and assess their impact within an environment characterised by increasingly fragmented audiences and platforms.

Identifying the right opportunities

Marketing leaders from diverse sectors agree: growth begins with identifying and prioritising the most significant opportunities. This may mean spotting untapped market segments, expanding internationally, or enhancing existing offers.

Market-first analysis is mostly used to find untapped areas where competitors are absent. CMOs mostly privilege the structured route, beginning with research to validate an opportunity before marketing ever comes into play. A participant demonstrated this by commissioning post-pandemic research. Insights revealed a gap in the market, prompting the launch of a new service. With the business case validated, marketing could build on solid ground. This approach ensured that the business case was proven before branding and marketing investments were made.

Other organisations take a mission-led approach, using their corporate purpose as a strategic filter. For these companies, only initiatives that align with the brand's mission make it through to execution. In both cases, clarity of focus helps cut through complexity and drive decisions that support long-term value.

All participants also stressed the importance of flexibility in adapting to market conditions, internal constraints, and emerging opportunities, but also the importance of data-driven decisions, based on market research and clear business cases. The key is to start with a real business opportunity, not just with brand assets or campaign ideas.

Brand or business: what leads the strategy?

Approaches differ depending on corporate culture. How the brand fits into this process varies widely. Brand-led organisations centre strategic planning around the brand, ensuring consistency and differentiation from the outset. This approach starts with the brand and uses it as the foundation for defining long-term business strategy. Company who follow this approach should ensure that brand and communication are embedded in every strategic move before finalizing an initiative. For instance, only take actions that can be clearly communicated.

In business-led organisations, marketing enters the conversation after a commercial opportunity is validated. Strategic decisions are driven by macro trends, operational feasibility, or governance frameworks, with marketing brought in to support execution.

Others, stressed the importance of aligning all new initiatives with their mission statement, using this as the primary filter for investment and development strategy, with branding considerations coming later.

In more regulated environments, growth must be achieved within governance constraints that shape the decision-making process, meaning they must operate within limits set by the board. Here, marketers tailor their strategies based on what is feasible and permitted.

Growth is a shared responsibility

Regardless of the starting point, the consensus was that alignment between brand, strategy, and execution is essential. Several tools were cited as valuable. One is the ability to express a value proposition in a single, clear sentence that anyone can understand. Another is to test communications early in the process, for instance by drafting a mock press release or client message to see whether the concept can be explained in a compelling way.

The discussion made it clear that growth is easier to capture when marketers have a structured way of identifying opportunities and a defined role for the brand in their strategy. Whether brand, mission, or compliance takes the lead, success depends on clarity of purpose, collaboration across teams, and a disciplined approach to defining and communicating the value proposition.

Finally, there was a strong call to continue peer dialogue. Marketers want more opportunities to compare approaches, learn from each other’s challenges, and co-develop solutions. Strategy isn’t static, and shared learning helps everyone stay ahead of the curve.

In a following article, we explore how CMOs balance long-term brand building with the demand for short-term results, and how KPIs and budgeting play a key role in defending strategic priorities.

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