Why consumer products CMOs should care about cyber risk

How technologyfuelled marketing strategies create vulnerabilities

Are your organization’s marketing technologies exposing you and your customers to cyber risk? It’s time for consumer products chief marketing officers (CMOs) to get a better understanding of cyber risk. Explore the top cybersecurity threats consumer products CMOs must be aware of and learn the importance of collaboration between CMOs and their cyber counterparts.

CMOs and cyber risk

While cyber risk has typically been the concern of chief information officers, chief information security officers, and chief technology officers, the time has likely come for CMOs to also focus on cyber risk. CMOs traditionally have been responsible for creating their company’s brand image while building loyalty and consumer trust. But couple today’s digital marketing environment with the constant threat of cyber breaches and the result could be widening the CMO focus to include protecting a company’s image.

Cyber risk can be mitigated with the right safeguards in place. Before investing in a new marketing technology, CMOs could benefit from taking a more collaborative approach, engaging in deeper conversations with both senior leadership and their cybersecurity counterparts to increase their knowledge of cyber risk to ensure that marketing activities facilitated by innovative technologies are secure, vigilant, and resilient.

Cyber breaches have the potential to compromise not only a brand’s reputation, negatively impacting loyalty and consumer trust, but also a brand’s ability to grow by acquiring new customers who may avoid a company that’s experienced a breach.

Why CMOs should care about cyber risk

77% of social media campaigns are led by CMOs – who

report using social media: for brand awareness and brand building (46%); acquiring new customers (31%); introducing new products (29%); and retaining current customers and brand promotions such as contents (both at 28%). Social network ad spending is expected to be at €16.5 billion in 2017 rising to €24.1 billion in 2019

28% of marketing analytics fall within the remit of the CMO – and is used for: search

engine optimisation (SEO), email marketing, customer segmentation, loyalty rewards programmes and overall marketing strategy. International Data Corporation (IDC) says that worldwide revenues for big data and business analytics will grow from €105.6 billion in 2016 to more than €165 billion in 2020.

28% of CMOs lead e-commerce activity – while they report

on that, on average, 12% of their sales are through the internet. Global e-commerce hit a mind boggling €1.8 trillion in 2017 and is expected to continue to rise.

Mobile marketing – which involves either sharing ads via mobile phones or ‘pushing’ information to consumers on their smartphones using location based targeting. Mobile ad spending accounts for 25% of all paid media spending globally, which is expected to reach €474 billion in 2017.

Customer relationship management (CRM) – In addition,

41% of CRM is led by CMOs. CRM also represents a substantial amount of marketing spend. CRM is typically used by CMOs for marketing campaign issues such as: insufficient or inaccurate reporting, low customer retention, and competitive tracking.

Next steps for CMOs to mitigate cyber risk

To protect their companies and customers from cyber risk, CMOs should maintain an open dialogue with their senior leadership. Here are some tips to keep in mind: • Be secure: Take a measured, risk-based approach to what is secured and how to secure it. This includes managing cyber risks as a team. One way to increase preparedness is by building cyber risk management strategies in the enterprise and emerging technologies as they are deployed.

• Be vigilant:

Monitor systems, applications, people, and the out-