The CMO’s Playbook starts with the presumption that CMOs (Chief Marketing Officers) and marketing practitioners can benefit from using a playbook, that there could exist a playbook (“a book containing a sports team’s strategies and plays” – ref Google) for CMOs. That despite the extreme context-dependence of marketing, despite difficulties in attributing impact to input, it is possible to build an actionable strategy that not only succeeds but also renews itself as the context evolves.

Strategic decision making in business is not always easy. Decisions are sometimes highly data-driven, sometimes a gut call, and short term interests could override long term considerations. This leads to questions on how CMOs could take better decisions, what better decision making is. Some initial thoughts include:

1. How do CMOs best balance strategic and tactical considerations? Can this be done better?
2. How can consideration of alternatives be enhanced? Even the best ability to take decisions is only as good as the options generated.
3. In today’s environment of “perpetual uncertainty”, are there some enduring guideposts that CMOs can rely upon for decision making?
4. How can strategic decision making in marketing go beyond profitability and embrace important notions such as purpose, empathy, and social benefit?
5. When brands are increasingly having to take a stance on social issues, how can CMOs help their brands navigate the fine line between controversy and customer understanding?

I focus on CMOs because my domain of (claimed) expertise is marketing. Having designed and taught (and received positive feedback on) an elective course ‘The CMO’s Playbook’ for full-time MBA students, the ideas of the CMO’s playbook are being co-created in the classroom. These ideas are also co-developed in conversation with marketing practitioners. Every year, a CMO shares their experiences with my students. If you are a marketing practitioner and would like to join this journey, I am eager to hear from you. My contact details are here.

In my upcoming book The CMO’s Playbook: Marketing Strategy for Today’s Businesses, I collect and structure the material and insights developed as the course progresses, including findings from academic research as well. The book is being written under the aegis of a leading university publishing house.

This page will be updated with insights and views as ‘The CMO’s Playbook’ project progresses. The course runs every year June-August. Here is a summary of what the course covers:

• Module 1: Strategy in Marketing – customer, context, competition (5Cs and beyond)
• Module 2: Decision Domains of the CMO – decisions related to marketing activities (4Ps and beyond), learnt through a popular rigorous multi-period simulation
• Module 3: Towards the CMO’s Playbook – unique set of topics impacting decision making in marketing (early stage business, martech, AI, regulation, ethics, others)
• Course activities and evaluation: reflection note, simulation, “prepare the CMO’s playbook’ project

An update following completion of the course in 2022: The CMO’s Playbook was well-received by the students and here is a short write-up on the experience of teaching and learning marketing strategy through this course.

And here is the write-up following the completion of the course in 2023.

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Comments on the course (from LinkedIn):

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Last edited: July 2025.