Columbia, MD – October 24, 2024

New Research from denstu’s Merkle Found 63% of Organizations are Launching New Experiences in the Pursuit of Business Growth

Report underscores CMOs' commitments to digital growth and customer-centric strategies in 2025

Today, Merkle, dentsu's leading customer experience (CX) transformation consultancy, released the latest installment from dentsu’s annual CMO Navigator Report, focusing on Customer Experience (CX) insights. The report reveals that CMOs are concentrating on maximizing existing capabilities while optimistically planning to invest more in digital transformation and experiences in 2025.

More than half (51%) of CMOs are looking to new strategies to navigate forward, leveraging new digital capabilities and emerging customer behaviors. To expand target audiences and cut through digital noise, 63% of organizations are launching new experiences, highlighting the growing trend of CMOs prioritizing CX.

"The dynamic and competitive landscape of 2024 has emboldened CMOs to discard traditional playbooks and invest more in innovation and consumer experiences," said Holden Bale, Global Head of Experience and Commerce, Merkle. "As CMOs navigate the complexities of digital transformation, our aim is to empower them with the insights needed to drive meaningful engagement and growth. We look forward to continuing to work with CMOs globally to enhance the customer experience."

The study found a few major themes, including:

Refocusing CX Strategies to Accelerate Growth 

Despite the vast opportunities presented by new technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), the report indicates that CMOs feel unsteady about their digital maturity, hindered more by organizational constraints than technology. Six in ten (63%) of CMOs feel their organizations still have work to do when it comes to orchestration across marketing, media, and CX. As such, CMOs are looking to extract more value out of existing capabilities and are making very targeted investments when it comes to technology, partners, and growth strategy. Yet only 25% of CMOs are investing heavily in digital transformation efforts or completely overhauling their tech stacks, indicating a need for technologies that maximize data utilization. 

Future Differentiation Through the Power of CX

As CMOs transform existing processes and data, they remain optimistic about the future of technology and the economy. An overwhelming majority (89%) of CMOs expect marketing budget increases next year, which will support further AI adoption and more impactful customer experiences. CMOs recognize the impact these future transformations will have on their businesses, with nearly two out of three (59%) expecting half or more of their future revenue to come from offerings not yet in their portfolios. This hopeful outlook will guide CMOs as they develop their 2025 strategies and investment decisions. 

The Emergence of the “Perceptive CMO”

Study findings uncovered a new breed of global CMO that is more aligned with consumers when it comes to how our lives will look 5 to 10 years from now. When comparing CMOs’ survey responses to consumers’, this subset of 18% of CMOs has greater alignment with consumers’ visions of a transformed future. This belief in future digital transformation makes “Perceptive CMOs” more proactive when it comes to taking CX capabilities to the next stage, leading them to invest more in innovation, CX, and business transformation than their peers.

This report is part of dentsu’s third annual CMO Navigator research series, which aims to help leaders understand the business climate that stakeholders in various sectors and regions are navigating. This series is the first expansion of the survey to a global level (previously focused on North America), administered by B2B International in August 2024 to global C-Suite marketing executives, covering 13 countries and reaching more than 1,900 CMOs. The 2024 report introduces custom studies by practice area, including this CX Navigator edition. Dentsu Creative’s CMO Survey launched earlier this year, and a Media-focused edition is forthcoming, each providing tailored insights by practice area.

About Merkle

Merkle, a dentsu company, powers the experience economy. For more than 35 years, the company has put people at the heart of its approach to digital business transformation. As the only integrated experience consultancy in the world with a heritage in data science and business performance, Merkle delivers holistic, end-to-end experiences that drive growth, engagement, and loyalty. Merkle’s expertise has earned recognition as a “Leader” by top industry analyst firms, in categories such as digital transformation and commerce, experience design, engineering and technology integration, digital marketing, data science, CRM and loyalty, and customer data management. With more than 16,000 employees, Merkle operates in 30+ countries throughout the Americas, EMEA, and APAC.

For more information, visit www.merkle.com.

About dentsu  

Dentsu is the network designed for what’s next, helping clients predict and plan for disruptive future opportunities and create new paths to growth in the sustainable economy. Taking a people-centered approach to business transformation, we use insights to connect brand, content, commerce and experience, underpinned by modern creativity. As part of Dentsu Group Inc. (Tokyo: 4324; ISIN: JP3551520004), we are headquartered in in Tokyo, Japan and our 72,000-strong employee-base of dedicated professionals work across four regions (Japan, Americas, EMEA and APAC). Dentsu combines Japanese innovation with a diverse, global perspective to drive client growth and to shape society.

Dentsu, Innovating to Impact.

Find out more:

https://www.dentsu.com/                    

https://www.group.dentsu.com/en/