Marketers spend a lot of time talking about AI, customer data, and analytics. New research suggests another marketing strategy shaping factor: what’s going on in your CMO’s life.
According to a Journal of Business Research paper, major life events such as marriage, divorce, parenthood, the death of a loved one, or recovery from a serious illness can impact everything from campaign strategies to product development.
Author Cong Feng, the Johnson Family Foundation Chair of Business at the University of Mississippi, focuses on CMOs because their decisions are first-rate and customer-centric. Unlike finance or operations managers, CMOs shape the products, campaigns, and brand stories that people experience every day. When their perspective changes, marketing often changes as well.
Feng organizes 34 life events into four broad categories that influence how CMOs allocate attention, assess risk, and communicate with customers. The framework is conceptual, but it offers a different way of thinking about leadership and marketing performance.
Life experiences shape marketing decisions
The first section focuses on depression. Events such as divorce, the death of a loved one, financial problems, or serious illness can make leaders hypervigilant. Feng says CMOs in those situations are more likely to shorten planning horizons, stick to standard tactics, and delay bold campaigns or major agency changes.
The next stage is events that change the way people see the world. Being a caregiver or recovering from a serious illness, for example, can deepen empathy. That experience often translates into a greater emphasis on accessibility, engaging design, and products that better serve underserved audiences.
Good milestones too. Marriage, childbirth, and adoption can encourage long-term thinking, making investments in brand purpose, sustainability, and community building more attractive than campaigns designed for the next quarterly report.
The final stage focuses on stability and popularity. In times when public opinion carries more weight, CMOs tend to rely on trusted partners, consistent messaging, and low-risk media strategies that minimize disruption.
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The takeaway
The research raises a broader question about leadership. Marketing organizations are investing heavily in data, predictive models, and AI to improve decision making. Those tools can support strategy, but they can’t measure the experience of the people interpreting the data.
Feng’s framework does not imply that all life events produce a predictable business outcome. Instead, challenge the assumption that managers leave their lives at the office door.
That has practical implications for marketing leaders and boards. Coaching managers, temporary work arrangements during major life events, and strong support leadership can help organizations maintain momentum while reducing stress on one manager.
That shouldn’t stop with the C-suite. The same life events that influence the CMO affect copywriters, designers, analysts, campaign managers, and everyone on the marketing team. The difference is that senior managers often receive training, flexibility, and organizational support, while everyone else is expected to continue producing as if nothing has changed.
Companies are spending billions on improving operations with better data, better technology, and now AI. Getting the most out of them requires investing in the people who use them.
“When life shapes marketing: a conceptual framework linking private life events of senior marketing executives and marketing performance,” by Cong Feng, in the Journal of Business Research, can download here. (No registration required.)
