The demise of the CMO role for some companies has been written about ad nauseam for many years. At first the role changed, Now we are seeing more companies eliminate the title.

I worked for a short time in PairGain Technologies’ marketing communications department in 1999 and the early 2000s, before rival ADC Telecommunications acquired it.

At the time, PairGain’s management eliminated the CMO role and put marketing under sales. I freaked simply because the long-standing thought that sales and marketing communications shouldn’t mix.

More recently, the CMO role has been combined with the title of brand officer, chief marketing strategist or experience officer. And then it opened its arms to the chief information officer title as technology such as artificial intelligence (AI) became more important to advertising.

Now we’re seeing companies eliminate the CMO role altogether. Etsy today eliminated its CMO role as the company sees flat sales growth. Ryan Scott had been at Etsy for five years.

The company also cut about 225 employees — around 11% of its staff — and consolidated its marketing and operation functions.

The responsibility for marketing operations at the company will fall to Raina Moskowitz, COO at Etsy. Moskowitz had previously served as vice president of customer marketing at American Express from April 2016 to April 2018.

Last week, United Parcel Service announced its CMO and customer experience officer Kevin Warren would leave the company at the end of the year. UPS is eliminating the CMO role.

Matt Guffey will take over marketing, “promoted” from the role of president of UPS global strategy and transformation to chief commercial and strategy officer. In his new position, Guffey will also oversee global revenue, product management, global strategy and transformation. All that without a CMO title. 

He also takes responsibility for the UPS on-demand network that includes UPS Stores and Happy Returns, the software and reverse logistics business it bought from PayPal in October.

Warren joined the company in 2018 after spending 33 years at Xerox, the printer company. His last role was chief commercial officer.

A month ago UPS cut its sales outlook following a 13% decline in revenue in the third quarter.

Anheuser-Busch said it would not fill the U.S. CMO role for the beer brand after Benoit Garbe departs at the end of the year.

The CMO role is not completely gone. We have seen it restructured and redefined at many companies. Microsoft replaced its long-serving CMO after committing to branding itself as an AI company. 

In addition, more companies have been hiring CMOs with performance marketing backgrounds, The Wall Street Journal reported in January. It gave the example of the big-and-tall men’s clothing retailer Destination XL Group hired Jim Reath, formerly senior vice president of marketing at home-goods chain Bed Bath & Beyond, as its CMO, in part, because of his experience overseeing brand and performance campaigns.

What will your next title be?

The demise of the CMO role at some companies has been a topic of much discussion. The CMO role has recently been combined with brand officer, chief marketing strategist or experience officer.