The Modern CMO: Narrative, Reputation & Creative Ecosystems Driving Growth
Thesis
Modern CMOs are integration leaders. In an AI‑native, voice‑forward market, the growth mandate spans narrative strategy, reputation architecture, and flexible creative ecosystems. The job is to make verified truths travel — across screens, speakers, and agents — and to convert attention into durable revenue and trust.
What changed (signals)
Answer engines & agents: Users ask, machines synthesize — visibility now depends on machine‑readable facts and provenance (see ASO below).
Screenless formats: Voice assistant usage keeps rising through 2028; podcasts have crossed the $2B revenue mark in the US, validating audio as a governance‑grade channel.
Org design: Growth, data/AI, and human experience roles are converging; the CMO must orchestrate the hand‑offs.
Deriss frameworks in this context
ASO — Agent Surface Optimization™: Ensure your canonical claims and provenance are selected by answer engines/agents.
SXI — Screenless eXperience Index™: Design and measure voice/ambient content as inclusion + disclosure infrastructure.
CHXO alongside CDAIO/CGO: Governance for tone, accessibility, provenance, and growth.
Narrative Strategy & Reputation Architecture (brand‑agnostic)
Narrative mining: Analyze public transcripts and owned channels to track themes (innovation, sustainability, affordability, resilience). Tie narrative shifts to outcomes (traffic, conversion, investor Q&A tone).
Canon building: Maintain a versioned Q&A corpus covering product, policy, and purpose. Publish short audio briefs + transcripts for high‑risk topics; structure pages with JSON‑LD.
Reputation levers: Treat disclosures (AI use, data policy, labor standards) as narrative assets; ensure they are consistent in text, audio, and assistant answers.
Creative Ecosystems: Investment & Impact
Budget posture: Benchmark marketing as % of revenue by sector; shift from media‑heavy to asset‑heavy(repeatable story worlds, episodic content, audio briefs, documentation).
Operating model: Hybrid network (in‑house studio + flexible specialists + AI tools) under a single editorial standard.
Measurement: Beyond SOV, track Answer Share, SXI, Creative Velocity (idea→asset cycle time), and Trust Lift (per disclosure).
| Sector | Trigger | Role pattern | 12–18 mo mandate | Adoption stage |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| EU premium consumer | Margin + trust squeeze | CDAIO + CHXO pairing | Data policy, model risk, experience ethics | Piloting |
| Global discretionary | Omni‑profitability | CGO w/ brand P&L | Full‑funnel growth ops; creative effectiveness | Emerging |
| Regulated services (bank/telco) | AI disclosure rules | CHXO | Accessibility, voice governance, crisis playbooks | Scaling |
| Industrial/energy | Scope‑3 & resilience | CDAIO | Data pipelines, third‑party assurance, supplier graphs | Scaling |
Voice‑First Public Affairs & Screenless UX (SXI lens)
Why voice: Accessibility, speed of understanding, and channel consistency. Publish a 60–90s audio brief + transcript for every policy update, release, or recall.
SXI score: Coverage · Latency · Consistency · Compliance · Sentiment (0–5 each). Target composite ≥3.5 within two quarters; ≥4.0 within a year.
Governance basics: Tone guide; watermark/labelling for synthetic voice; event logs; locale‑specific variants.
From SEO to ASO (Agent Surface Optimization)
Spec: JSON‑LD for org/product/policy; provenance links; effective dates; locales; machine‑reuse license.
Measures: Answer Share (assistant responses citing your canon), Time‑to‑Update, Provenance Pass‑Rate.
Cadence: Weekly diffs → monthly corpus refresh → quarterly evals with Legal/Accessibility.
30/60/90 for CMOs
30 days — Inventory top 100 questions; write canonical answers; publish schema; produce audio briefs for top‑risk items.
60 days — Localize; instrument Answer Share & SXI; integrate with support/search.
90 days — External assurance on provenance; expand to product FAQs; publish changelog.
References (to attach on site with live links)
eMarketer, Voice Assistant User Forecast 2024 (US users 145.1M→170.3M, 2023–2028).
IAB/PwC, US Podcast Advertising Revenue Study 2024 (>$2B 2024; ~$2.6B by 2026).
McKinsey, Growth “triple play” (creativity + analytics + purpose ≈ 2× growth of peers).
Note: We intentionally avoid brand name‑drops. Examples appear only as anonymized sector archetypes.
