Does Starbucks need a chief marketing officer?

Starbucks has promoted current global chief marketing officer Brady Brewer to CEO of Starbucks’ international operations, thereby eliminating the CMO role among many companies. was the slowest company.

Rather than replacing top marketing positions, Starbucks is appointing regional CEOs with the help of “regional marketing support” to coordinate marketing and messaging at the regional level. Starbucks will also create two new marketing roles for her next.

• The EVP, Chief Sales Officer and Head of Product “focused on our global product strategy with the development of new products and growth platforms.”
• As the global brand’s creative leader, he is expected to oversee collaborations between art, design, architecture, fashion, publishing and music, and guide the chain’s global brand identity.

The reorganization comes after the chain introduced its “Triple Shot Reinvention” growth plan last November. The plan includes increasing store footprint from 38,000 stores today to 55,000 stores by 2030, primarily driven by expansion in China and other underserved overseas markets. It is included. It also calls for doubling the number of Starbucks Rewards members, who number 75 million worldwide, within five years.

Laxman Narasimhan, CEO of Starbucks, said: “In line with our ambitions, we have a clear geographic focus and a commitment to expand scale around the world, generate productivity and reinvigorate our partner culture. “We are realigning our organization to balance this with investments in functional capabilities to support our customers.”

Starbucks isn’t the only company to undergo organizational changes recently. UPS, Etsy, and Walgreens have all decided to eliminate CMO roles in recent months, following recent moves by Lowe’s, Hyatt Hotels, McDonald’s, Johnson & Johnson, Uber, and Lyft to eliminate CMO roles.

According to Adweek, “Starbucks’ move to eliminate the CMO position comes as many brands are rethinking currently ambiguous roles within their businesses, changing titles to reflect broader responsibilities and replacing consulting-style positions with In some cases, complete cuts have been made while hiring a “partial” CMO. ”

A recent analysis by Spencer Stewart found that 27% of Fortune 500 companies do not have a CMO role.

Jimmy Yar, chief detective at The Talent Detective, believes that Starbucks’ reorganization of its marketing structure reflects an increased emphasis on the company’s “think global, act local” credo. There is. He told Marketing-Interactive: “In high-growth regions like APAC, where countries are much less homogeneous than in North America or Europe, the trend is to decentralize to regional marketing to drive growth. “I’m working on it,” he said.

An article in Ad Age notes that marketing-related roles, such as chief customer officer, are increasingly being taken over by CMOs, especially at retailers, “as companies seek to put customers at the forefront of all marketing decisions, including loyalty programming.” He pointed out that they are about to be replaced.

A January Fortune article on the trend of the CMO role being abandoned notes that the rise of “martech” (or marketing technology) that supports data-driven digital marketing is making the role “more algorithm-driven and filled with customer insights.” It is also so mission-critical that it also has the authority of other executives.”