Steve Olenski

Known as The CMO Whisperer for both his close relationships with many CMOs of the world’s biggest brands and his marketing acumen – Steve is a true unicorn having served in roles ranging from agency creative director to senior marketing roles in companies such as Prudential and Oracle to a contributing writer for Forbes where he established himself as a highly-influential journalist in the marketing, advertising and branding space. The views expressed here are Steve's alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of Oracle.

An Open Letter To CMOs, Part 1

October 7, 2021October 7, 2021 by Steve Olenski

Dear CMOs:

First and foremost, you have my utmost respect.

While I have never been a CMO myself, I do have a lot of real-world marketing (and advertising) experience, I was a featured writer for the CMO Network of Forbes for nearly 10 years, I have interviewed well over 2,000 leaders just like yourself, I coach and counsel CMOs and I have very close relationships with many of your peers.

So while having never served in the role per se, I know the role quite intimately. I know of the struggles and challenges you go through on a daily basis. I know all about the daily ride you go on. Boy, do I ever.

Ok, just wanted to set the table for those who I have not had the pleasure of getting to know. I like to joke that I collect CMOs like I used to collect sports cards. As a kid, my brother Greg and I spent arguably just slightly less than the GNP of Sri Lanka on football, baseball, basketball, and hockey cards.

Of course, none of said cards still exist today else my brother and I would be living in the lap of luxury in, well, Sri Lanka.

But I digress.

Are CMOs Deeply Dissatisfied With Traditional Digital Advertising?

July 28, 2016 by Steve Olenski

The title of this post is a bit of a paraphrase of something Mike Sands said to me not long ago. Mike is the CEO of Signal, a leader in real-time people-based marketing. And his company recently released the findings of a study done in partnership with Econsultancy that highlights the rise of addressable media amongst buyers and marketers.

I’ll get to more of my conversation with Mike in a bit but for right now let’s look at some of the findings from the study, entitled “People-Based Advertising: Evaluating the impact and future of addressable media” — which may give credence to Sands’ belief that indeed CMOs are deeply dissatisfied with traditional advertising.

Right out of the chute was the fact that the majority of advertisers and media buyers have embraced people-based advertising with nearly seven in 10 advertisers reporting that they have used Facebook Custom Audiences while a significant majority plan to increase people-based advertising buys even further in 2016.

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This is the Top Publication Shared By CMOs

November 12, 2015 by Steve Olenski

Leadtail is a social strategy firm that has built a panel of over 1,000 B2B and B2C CMOs and marketing executives located in North America and active on Twitter that develops social insights reports on CMOs and other decision makers.

They recently released the results of analysis of over 60,000 Tweets during the month of October and determined Forbes to be the #1 publication shared by CMOs during that month. As a Forbes contributor myself, specifically to the CMO Network, I am not surprised to see it come in #1 for we have a great group of contributors for sure.

Here’s a quick legend regarding the colors and what they represent followed by the full list:

Blue = Did not rank in the Top 50 in the previous month

Green = Moved up in ranking over last month

Red = Moved down in ranking over last month

Black = No change over last month

The CMO Technology Conundrum And How To Solve It

April 23, 2015 by Steve Olenski

“The first rule of any technology used in a business is that automation applied to an efficient operation will magnify the efficiency. The second is that automation applied to an inefficient operation will magnify the inefficiency.” —Bill Gates

Given the vast array of technology, data points, channels, and tactics available, new technology and marketing automation has stepped in to help CMOs bring all their activities together and support the delivery of the ultimate customer experience. But has it really helped so far? Or has it simply created another overwhelming challenge for the CMO who now must become a technology expert to apply it efficiently?

The above is an excerpt from a recently-released guide the Oracle Marketing Cloud created along with The CMO Club entitled the CMO Solution Guide to Leveraging New Technology and Marketing Platforms. The guide, which I co-authored, contains results of a survey of over 100 marketing leaders plus the five key solutions we identified to help CMOs and marketing leaders tackle the challenge of providing a seamless customer experience across all marketing channels via the use of technology – the right technology that is.

Why Marketers Need To Listen To A Super Bowl Winning Quarterback And Wide Receiver

January 30, 2015February 1, 2015 by Steve Olenski

Not sure if you heard or not but the Super Bowl is this coming Sunday. Just felt it my duty to remind you all of that in case you were, say, on another planet the last week or so.

Some Lessons From Jerry Rice For All Marketers

September 10, 2014December 20, 2014 by Steve Olenski

This past January, not long before Super Bowl XLVIII, I published an article entitled What A CMO Can Learn From A Super Bowl Winning Quarterback. In that article I shared some of the many things a CMO, or anyone in marketing quite frankly, can learn from a certain Super Bowl winning QB.

The QB in question just happened to be one half of the greatest quarterback/wide receiver combinations in the history of the National Football League, in my not-so-humble opinion.

I am referring of course to Joe Montana, he of the four Super Bowl rings. Yes, that Joe Montana.

As I wrote back then, there is a tremendous amount of similarity between the sports world and the world of marketing and advertising. There are many lessons that crossover between the two worlds for sure.

When It Comes To Marketing And Advertising Not Just Any Visual Will Do

July 18, 2014December 20, 2014 by Steve Olenski

Back in April of this year, I wrote a piece entitled A View To A Thrill: Why Marketers Need To Get Visual, Fast. The article essentially served as a not-to-gentle reminder (at least that was its intent) to those in marketing and advertising of the power of the visual when it comes to reaching and engaging consumers.

What I wrote then is surely true today.

The power of visuals in marketing and advertising is not the future, it is the present. Ok technically it’s the present AND the future but my point is this is not something that’s coming down the road nor is it a trend or a fad for that matter. Consumers want and quite frankly, expect to see some kind of visual aid, if you will, when it comes to marketing and advertising. These visual aids resonate and connect with consumers and spur them to take action.

However, based on new research it may not be just any old picture or image that will do when it comes to fully engaging and resonating and in turn prompting a consumer to take action AKA spend their money on your product, service or ware.

In Brands We Trust – Why Brands Must Treat Trust Like Gold

March 6, 2014December 20, 2014 by Steve Olenski

Back in January of this year I wrote a piece which spoke to the need for every marketer to remember a certain nine-letter word: Relevance. And while I firmly stand by what I penned then I am here to tell not just every marketer, but every advertiser and brand under the sun as well that there’s a five-letter word that must be treated like gold for when it is achieved, wondrous things can occur.

The word is trust.

Now the word “trust” in it of itself has many different connotations and in the context of advertising, marketing and branding it comes in different shapes, size and meanings, too.

Why CMOs Need To Remember They Are Consumers, Too

February 14, 2014December 20, 2014 by Steve Olenski

Note: While this article is written directly toward CMOs, make no mistake about it, CEOs should heed this advice, too.

The time has come. The time to remind the leaders of marketing departments across the land that they are also consumers, too and as such they need to care about consumers and the business they bring to the bottom line; and that they need to care about things that go way beyond a marketing plan.

In other words they need to remember they are people, too, just like the person on the other end of that cash register, email, Facebook post, advertisement and on and on and on.