Chief marketing officers are in the hot seat to perform and churn out work that stands out creatively, is cheaper and is delivered on tighter deadlines. Meanwhile, the disconnect between CMOs and the rest of the C-suite is at an all-time high—and these issues are colliding and creating a pressure cooker of a situation that won’t let up anytime soon, according to a new survey of CMO concerns going into 2025.

The CMO Barometer, a study conducted by the University of St. Gallen with German-based independent agency network Serviceplan Group, finds many CMOs don’t believe the global economic situation is going to change much in 2025, for better or worse. And more executives than last year are anticipating budget decreases in the new year, leading them toward AI as a solution.

“CMOs are under tremendous pressure to deliver stronger results with leaner budgets,” said Florian Haller, CEO of Serviceplan Group, which houses agencies including Pereira O'Dell.  “AI-driven solutions are a natural outcome of this drive for efficiency. It’s essential that we [as agencies] maximize AI’s potential beyond efficiency alone and explore its role as a creative and inspirational tool.”

The study surveyed 835 marketing leaders across Europe, and gives a glimpse into what is top of mind for these executives as they head into 2025. Below are some key takeaways.

AI top of mind

CMOs are continuing to think about how to navigate the use of AI in marketing—48% of executives surveyed said AI will be the most important topic to consider in 2025.

There wasn’t even a close second on that list. Ten percent of executives surveyed said brand building and differentiation will be the most important topic for them in 2025, followed by digital transformation of marketing and tools (9%); customer-centric processes (8%); sustainability and ethical marketing (7%); negative economic factors (7%); customer experience and storytelling (6%); employer branding (2%); new consumer expectation (1%). (“Other” received 18%). Respondents were able to give more than one answer. 

“The key theme for marketing will be mass personalization driven by AI,” Lorena Mercedes, senior marketing director of Salesforce Iberia, said in the survey. “The ability to deliver hyper-personalized experiences on a large scale, based on real-time data, will enable brands in both consumer and business to anticipate and meet the specific needs of their customers much more accurately.”

Further, 81% of executives surveyed said they would be prioritizing the use of AI in marketing processes in 2025. The other areas of priority investment include customer journey management and personalization (80%); content creation and optimization, content marketing (78%); marketing return-on-investment, marketing controlling, marketing analytics (76%); and emotional brand building (74%).

Interestingly, 78% of CMOs surveyed last year said sustainability would be a priority in 2024 but none of those surveyed this year cited that as a top priority for 2025.

Another 63% of respondents also said they were considering using AI agents, which are becoming more popular as AI-generated avatars get more realistic and easier to create.

Read more about AI agents here

Budgets and the economy

A majority of respondents (66%) cited pricing as an important issue heading into 2025. Budgets and how to create work cheaper and more efficiently remain top of mind for CMOs.

Most CMOs surveyed have indifferent feelings on the global economic situation, with only 25% saying they are optimistic that it will significantly improve or improve at all in 2025; 51% said conditions will likely stay the same. Last year, 34% of respondents were hopeful that the economy would improve in 2024 while 46% were indifferent.

There are still CMOs who anticipate boosting their marketing budgets in 2025: 7% of respondents said they will increase by more than 10%; 13% said they will increase by 5% to 10%; 17% said they will increase by a max of 5%. That’s a total of 37% of CMOs who anticipate increasing their budgets by some percentage, slightly down from last year when 38% of respondents anticipated increasing budgets in 2024.

A total of 36% of respondents expect marketing budgets to remain unchanged in 2025, while 10% anticipate budgets to decrease by a maximum of 5%; 12% said they will decrease by 5% to 10%; and 5% said they will decrease by more than 10%.

That’s a total of 27% of CMOs surveyed projecting budgets to decrease in 2025, up from 21% of respondents last year.

Skills and services CMOs need

When asked what CMOs want most from their ad agencies, 71% responded creativity and out-of-the box thinking; 63% want innovation and new ideas; 54% want proactivity; 48% want insights into trends on a specific market or target group; 38% want broad insights and recognition of trends; 11% want specialist skills such as generative AI and data and business acumen; and 5% responded “other.”

The skills CMOs are seeking within their teams include strategic marketing and brand management (74%); digital marketing and AI expertise (65%); creativity (50%); data and analytics (41%); content creation and optimization (31%); market research (18%); marketing controlling (16%), and “other” (5%), which includes operational excellence, social skills, customer knowledge and emotional intelligence.

“Tomorrow, a CMO needs vision and can speak non-marketing to all levels and demonstrate the value of a marketing function to generate buy-in,” Helen Cutmore, marketing director, U.K. and Ireland, of kitchen and home appliances maker De’Longhi, is quoted as saying in the survey. “On [an] operational level, he or she needs to [be] able to manage the long and short of it—with a great team of experts.”