CMO confidence, cash v card, ad spend: 5 killer stats to start your week

1. CMOs struggling to truly engage with the c-suite

Only 5% of CMOs consider themselves to be high achievers, the lowest of any C-suite role. In contrast, more than half (55%) of CEOs consider themselves high performers, followed by 35% of chief financial officers.

However, the lack of confidence among CMOs is more perception that reality. Most C-suite members perceive the CMO to be performing at a much higher level than they see themselves, particularly in areas such as demonstrating financial impact, customer expertise and initiating collaborative efforts.

For example, CEOs, CFOs and chief technology officers rank CMOs much more highly on financial impact than CMOs do – with CEOs ranking them around the 60% mark, compared to about 30% for CMOs.

However, relatively few people in C-suite roles see the CMO as owning the customer experience. Just 11% perceive the CMO as champion of customer experience and nearly half (48%) believe this responsibility falls under the remit of the chief sales officer.

In some key areas such as digital transformation (1%) and product road map development (3%) the CMO is nearly invisible. However, the CMO is generally seen as the owner of marketing strategy (46%) and new markets (42%).

Source: Deloitte

2. Consumers abandon cash for card payments

Cash payments have dropped to third place behind debit and credit card spending, while retail transactions exceeded 20 billion during 2018.

Cash payments have been falling steadily; since 2013, the use of cash has dropped from more than half of all transactions to less than 40% in 2018. The value of those cash transactions has also fallen from 28% to 20%.

Meanwhile, the cost of accepting card payments is rising, with retailers spending £1.3bn per year with third parties, up £70 million from 2017. Each transaction cost retailers an average of 5.85 pence per transaction, up 17% from 4.98 pence.

Total UK retail sales also climbed by 4.1% to £381bn year on year.

Source: British Retail Consortium

3. US ad spend growth better than expected

US advertising revenue is forecast to grow by 6.3% in 2019, up from a previous estimate of 5.1% thanks to a better-than-anticipated first half. US advertising revenue increased by 7.6% to $107bn in the year to June.

Direct digital media ad sales grew by 19% in the first half, which included a 16% increase in search, and a 31% rise for social.Ad sales in TV, audio and out-of-home were stable during the first half of the year at 0.1% growth, thanks to strong growth in digital video (25%) and out-of-home (7%).

The recovery in audio media (2%) and the stability of national TV (0%) also offset local TV (down 5%) and publishing (down 12%).

Source: Magna

4. Grocery market returns to growth

The grocery market returned to growth with sales increasing by 0.5% during the 12 weeks to 8 September. Yet, households bought 0.9% fewer items during this period compared to the same time last year.

Lidl reached a record high market share of 6%, with an additional 618,000 shoppers visiting the retailer compared to last year. Aldi increased sales by 6.3% and the Co-op also grew sales by 1.8%, with a third of British consumers making a trip to its stores during the last three months.

Ocado was once again the fastest growing retailer with sales up 12.7%. This period also marked Sainsbury’s strongest growth since October 2018, but sales still declined by 0.1%.

Additionally, Morrisons market share dipped to 9.9% as sales fell by 2.0%. Waitrose’s sales declined by 1.3% and Iceland by 2.0%, taking market shares to 5.0% and 2.1% respectively.

Source: Kantar

5. Marketers see uplift in sales due to sustainable packing

Some 31% of marketers say sales of FMCG products increased after switching to more sustainable packaging. However, 67% say they haven’t noticed an uplift in sales and just 2% haven’t made the switch but are considering it.

Another 51% of marketers say the material used to package products is an important or extremely important part of the marketing mix, and their company believes sustainable packaging is important to their business.

So much so that 65% believe using sustainable packaging is ‘extremely important’ to the overall business, while 35% say it is ‘important’.

When asked about the most important factor in making decisions about packaging, 37% say being environmentally friendly, followed by quality (25%) with brand value communication (13%) coming in third.

But more than half (55%) still believe retailers and brands should be doing more to introduce more environmentally-friendly packaging.

Source: European Association of Carton and Cartonboard manufacturers