Latest / The CMO Podcast with Fexingo: Marketing Leadership, Budgets, and Executive Strategy / What CMOs Are Learning from Brand-Led Culture Change
Transcript
- Lucas: Luna, when you hear the phrase 'CMO priority list,' what comes to mind first? Luna: Campaign performance, media mix, brand tracking, probably a lot of spreadsheet time. Lucas: Right. But a new Gartner survey out this quarter shows that 42 percent of CMOs now oversee or co-own employee experience and internal communications. That's up from 18 percent just four years ago. Luna: That's a huge jump. Are we talking about the chief people officer's turf here? Lucas: Partially. But the argument is that brand isn't just what you say to customers — it's what your employees live every day. If your internal culture doesn't match your external promise, customers feel it. And CMOs are being handed that puzzle. Luna: So you're saying the same person who decides the ad campaign is now also responsible for whether the call center actually sounds like the ad. Lucas: Exactly. Let me give you a concrete example. Delta Air Lines. In 2023, they brought on Alicia Tillman as CMO. She had come from SAP, where she led global brand and marketing. And one of her first big moves wasn't a campaign — it was an internal program called 'Brand Ambition.' Luna: What did that involve? Lucas: She and her team created a kind of internal brand summit. They brought together people from flight crew, ground staff, tech, customer service — about 75,000 employees eventually — and essentially taught them the brand narrative. Not just 'be nice to customers,' but a specific set of behaviors tied to Delta's positioning. Luna: And that sits in marketing's budget? Lucas: Yes. Tillman reallocated a portion of the traditional ad budget to fund training materials, internal videos, even a mobile app that gamified brand-consistent behavior. The idea was: if employees live the brand, every touchpoint becomes a marketing channel. Luna: I can see HR pushing back on that. 'We own employee training.' Lucas: And they did, early on. But the CMO's argument was that HR focuses on compliance and policy — marketing focuses on narrative and emotional connection. The two are complementary, not competitive. And in Delta's case, it worked. Their Net Promoter Score among employees improved, and customer satisfaction scores followed. Luna: So the CMO becomes a sort of internal brand whisperer. That's a different skill set than running media buys. Lucas: It is. And it's requiring CMOs to hire different talent. Gartner also reports that 31 percent of marketing departments now have dedicated internal communications roles — that was almost unheard of five years ago. Luna: I wonder if this is a permanent shift or just a post-pandemic hangover. You know, companies realizing they need to rebuild culture after remote work. Lucas: It might be both. But the data suggests CMOs who have taken on internal branding are seeing budget stability. When the CFO looks for cuts, the marketing team that can show 'we're also driving retention and reducing hiring costs' has a stronger case. Luna: You know, if these conversations have sparked something you've actually used — maybe you've tried a brand alignment exercise with your own team — that's exactly the kind of thing that keeps this show ad-free. If today was worth a coffee to you, buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. Low-key, no pressure. Lucas: Appreciate that. And we mean it — just a small tap if it's useful. So back to Delta. One of the interesting knock-on effects: Tillman started using the same creative agency for internal campaigns as for external. That saved production costs and kept the brand voice consistent. Luna: That's smart. Instead of two separate agencies, one doing TV spots and another doing onboarding videos. Lucas: Right. But it also means the agency has to understand employee experience, not just consumer behavior. Some agencies are building internal comms practices specifically for this. Luna: Is there a risk that CMOs spread themselves too thin? Like, you're now responsible for product feedback, customer experience, internal culture — at some point you're losing focus. Lucas: That's a fair concern. And the counter-argument from some CMOs I've spoken with is that they shouldn't own it all — they should influence it. They provide the brand framework, but operations and HR execute the day-to-day. The CMO's role is to be the guardian of the narrative, not the manager of every onboarding session. Luna: So it's more about setting the North Star than running the training. Lucas: Exactly. And that's where the 42 percent number gets interesting. Because not all of those CMOs are doing the same thing. Some are literally managing internal comms teams. Others sit on a committee with HR and operations. The common thread is that they have a seat at the table. Luna: Let's talk about measurement. How do you measure success when your 'campaign' is inside the company? Lucas: Good question. Traditional metrics like reach and frequency don't apply. Instead, CMOs are using employee net promoter score, or eNPS, plus retention rates, internal survey data on brand understanding, and even customer satisfaction correlation. Some are tracking whether employees who complete brand training have higher customer satisfaction scores. Luna: That's a pretty direct link. If you can show that a $200,000 internal brand program reduces turnover by 2 percent, that's a huge ROI. Lucas: Huge. And it's a different kind of ROI argument than 'this campaign drove X impressions.' It's about long-term brand health. Which, frankly, CMOs have been trying to measure for decades. Luna: One thing I've noticed: a lot of the CMOs who are doing this well come from B2B backgrounds. They're used to selling internally — getting buy-in from sales, engineering, support. Lucas: That's a great observation. Tillman came from SAP, which is B2B. Another example: former Microsoft CMO Chris Capossela was known for his internal 'consumer love' program that trained thousands of employees on brand storytelling. B2B CMOs are almost trained for this. Luna: So if you're a B2C CMO looking to move into this space, you might need to build different muscles. Lucas: Absolutely. You're shifting from persuading an audience to persuading an organization. It's marketing, but the target is your own people. Luna: I want to ask about the dark side. Can internal branding become propaganda? Forcing a narrative on employees that doesn't match reality? Lucas: It can, and it has. If the brand promise is 'we put customers first' but employees know the company just cut customer service hours, the internal campaign will backfire. Trust erodes faster than it builds. The best CMOs I've seen start with an honest assessment of the gap between promise and reality before they create any internal content. Luna: So it requires a level of organizational honesty that not every company has. Lucas: Right. This isn't a paint job. It's a renovation. And if the foundation is cracked, no amount of internal video is going to fix it. Luna: Let's look ahead. Do you think in five years the CMO will routinely have internal branding as a core responsibility? Lucas: Based on the trajectory, yes. But I think the title might evolve. We're already seeing Chief Brand Officer roles that encompass both external and internal. And some companies are creating Chief Experience Officers that sit above marketing and HR. The CMO who can navigate both worlds will have more influence. Luna: Interesting. It's almost like marketing is becoming less about advertising and more about organizational alignment. Lucas: That's exactly it. The CMO is becoming the chief alignment officer. And the best ones are using their storytelling skills to bring the whole company together around a shared purpose. Luna: Alright, let's leave it there. That number — 42 percent — is going to stick with me. Lucas: Me too. Next time you hear a CMO talk about brand, remember they might be talking to their own employees as much as to customers. Luna: Thanks, Lucas. Lucas: Thanks, Luna.