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Are we witnessing the rise of the Chief Marketing Security

Officer?

By Lukasz Szostak

Just over four years ago Gartner famously predicted that by 2017 CMOs will spend more on
information technology than CIOs. Recent industry reports suggest that what in 2012 sounded
like a bold prediction, today becomes a reality and, according to a recent CIO.com article,
CMOs already start outspending CIOs.

At the same time there has been a huge disconnect between marketing teams and technology
teams. They operate with different mindsets, time horizons and goals; marketing teams are
project driven, while traditionally IT has been process driven. A couple of missed campaign
deadlines are usually enough a reason for marketers to externalize the next product microsite or
a campaign landing page to their third party digital agency. It’s a win-win – marketing get work
delivered on time and IT don’t have to deal with “those marketing people”.

But where’s information security in all this? Say your marketing launched a new product
campaign run by a third party social media agency. Say that the agency created a campaign
landing page on their servers to collect prospect customer data. What if the site gets
compromised or your data spills over to your competitor’s database hosted with the same
agency?

This scenario could easily cost the CMO or the CISO a job, but marketing technology security
still remains in the blind spot of most C-level executives.

It will only get worse

As more and more industries become commoditized, enterprises compete increasingly more by
the means of Customer Experience. Forrester put it very bluntly in one of its press releases by
saying that companies will “thrive and fail” in the age of the customer. The analyst firm also put
“personalizing the customer experience” on top of the list of 10 critical success factors that will
determine who wins and who fails in this new environment.

Kevin Cochrane, a veteran CMO in the marketing technology space addressed the same topic
in his recent interview:

To win, you need to know the intimate details about your customers. From when they
wake up to when they go to sleep and what dreams and aspirations they have. But, at
the same time, that's the very same data that makes it so valuable to steal from you.

4 Cyber Warnings E-Magazine – August 2016 Edition
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