The New CCO

Page Society member Richard Edelman, president and CEO of Edelman, offers his perspective on the Society’s New CCO report and the related panel discussion held at Edelman’s New York offices on March 16, 2016.

We hosted a lunch meeting yesterday for the Arthur W. Page Society in our New York office. We had three of the top executives from the communications field on the panel with me, including Gary Sheffer, the recently retired CCO of GE, Mike Fernandez, CMO and CCO of Cargill and Jon Iwata, CCO and CMO of IBM along with Tina McCorkindale of the Institute of PR. The event was organized to launch the newest piece of intellectual property from Page, “The New CCO: Transforming Enterprises in a Changing World.”

The organizing hypothesis of the white paper is that the Chief Communications Officer will play a central role in the rapid evolution of the enterprise. Given the emergence of new competitors using sharing economy models, the discontinuous change in the media, the rise of populism and its effect on business, and fast changing demographics, the CCO of the future will play three fundamental roles:

• The Foundational CCO — This is the role of steward of enterprise reputation, a counselor with the confidence of senior management and an effective honest communicator.
• The Integrator CCO — The new model of leadership is less about ownership of specific areas and more about cross-functional collaboration. Among the functions tied with the CCO are marketing, HR, production (supply chain) and legal. McCorkindale likened the effective CCO to an octopus with arms reaching in every direction within a company.
• The Digitally Engaged CCO — The CCO should develop systems that know you based on data, to deliver personalized content and platforms for direct dialogue with those who shape opinion.

Among the best questions from the audience: What new skills are you trying to add to your department? Among the answers were a big data expert, a human behavior expert and paid media expert. While the first and third are self-explanatory, the human behavior one from Iwata fascinated me as a counterpoint to the Watson initiative, which seeks to render huge batches of data into comprehensible options. We are analysts but also social scientists who need to intuit trends in advance.

I made a case for a more aggressive push by CCOs into an active partnership with marketing. Given ad blocking, click fraud and cord-cutting reducing the number of views, the brand story will have to be told through earned and owned channels. I gave big kudos to GE for its GE Reports, Thomas Edison Blog and other aspects of a brilliant owned strategy. The reality is that every big company will have to become its own media company.

I also made the case for CEOs to put their heads above the parapet again, to lead on issues that are closely related to their businesses or communities. For example, the CEO of Eli Lilly, John Lechleiter, made it clear publicly to Indiana Governor Mike Pence that a bill that would limit the rights of gay customers was unacceptable to him and others in the state business community. Similarly, Aetna’s CEO Mark Bertolini has taken a leadership position on stagnating wages by offering his colleagues a minimum of $15 per hour. This requires a CCO able to overcome a typically conservative general counsel and reticent board.

I am very pleased with the emergence of a more confident, powerful CCO. The best ones have a background in media, public service and marketing. They are able to be peers of other senior executives. They are mixing easily with unusual partners, from civil society watchdogs to vociferous online critics. They are pushing for rich social channels that do more than offer “how-to videos” or promotions, instead asking for real input from passionate consumers. Most of all, the new CCO is conscious of the need for values at the core of the corporation, in order to attract and retain the best and brightest employees. We should recognize that Messrs. Sheffer, Iwata and Fernandez have changed the profession for the better.

…

Originally published at www.edelman.com by Richard Edelman, president and CEO of Edelman.