Gartner for Marketers
CMOs Gamble on Swift Recovery,
but Strategic Priorities Reveal Hedging
© 2020 Gartner, Inc. and/or its ailiates. All rights reserved. CM_GBS_969891
The Annual CMO
Spend Survey
Research
PART 1
2020-21
The Annual CMO Spend Survey Research | PART 1
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Published 30 June 2020 - ID G00715362
As CMOs respond to the COVID-19 crisis and
social tensions, this year’s survey captures
strategies, budgets and priorities at a time of
upheaval. This report, one of a two-part series,
also examines ways CMOs plan to maintain
and grow revenue into 2021.
Ewan McIntyre
VP Analyst
Anna Maria Virzi
Principal Analyst
The Annual CMO Spend Survey Research | PART 1
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Overview
Key Findings
• CMOs dismiss economic pessimism as 73% expect
COVID-19’s near-term negative impacts to be short-lived,
at odds with the expectations of C-suite colleagues.
• Despite their positive outlooks, almost half of CMOs (44%)
are facing midyear budget cuts in 2020 as a direct result
of the COVID-19 pandemic. Eleven percent expect their
budgets to face significant cuts of more than 15%.
• To reconcile their economic optimism with their budget
limitations, CMOs continue to pursue relatively conservative
growth strategies, with 79% primarily relying on existing
markets to fuel growth.
Recommendations
CMOs focusing on marketing leadership and strategy should:
• Build flexible and adaptive plans. Volatility will persist in the
year ahead, and you must have the right tools, processes
and insight to evolve strategies and spending priorities with
the changing environment.
• Stratify and prioritize marketing investments using
zero-based prioritization (ZBP). Distinguish between the
investments that must be protected and those you could
aord to lose if budgets were cut.
• Adopt value segmentation to focus growth in 2021 on
the most profitable customers while supplementing such
safer bets with counterbalancing transformative priorities.
The Annual CMO Spend Survey Research | PART 1
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Survey Objective
This research is based on Gartner’s 2020 CMO Spend Survey
of 432 marketing executives in North America, the U.K.,
France and Germany at companies with $500 million to
$20 billion or more annual revenue. It details:
• The immediate impact on marketing strategies and
spending as a result of the COVID-19 crisis
• CMOs’ expectations of the future — how budgets, spending
and strategic priorities will evolve heading into 2021
• How priorities are changing in terms of the shift toward
digital channels, and the balance of in-house and external
agency resources
The Annual CMO Spend Survey Research | PART 1
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Source: Gartner
ID: 715362_C
Data Insights
Defying economic pessimism, 73% of CMOs expect COVID-19’s negative impacts to be short-lived
The global COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted business plans unlike any event this century. As unprecedented
as the events of 2020 have been so far, previous points of crisis such as the Great Recession of 2008 have
revealed a pattern of business behaviors: initial response, recovery and renewal (see Figure 1).
Figure 1. The Reset: Post-COVID-19 Recovery Phases
Crisis Uncertainty Recovery
Activity
Time
Respond
Recover
Renew
Marketing’s
unique phases
Marketers are in
crisis mode.
Marketers face
uncertain markets.
Marketing plans for
orderly recovery.
