Jeff Wenzel argues CMOs and CFOs are fundamentally at odds: marketing is a wildfire that spreads unpredictably and resists measurement, while finance demands quantifiable returns. Breakthrough work requires risks finance cannot model, and companies must tolerate uncertainty to avoid settling for mediocre, safe campaigns.
CMOs and CFOs will always be moral enemies. And I'm about to say something that's going to get me in trouble. Great marketing is extremely hard to track. That's the truth nobody wants printed in the board deck. You put the marketing out into the world and then it catches its own wind. It becomes a wildfire. It moves without your supervision, without your dashboard, without your permission. That is the best marketing there is. Now here's the problem. Finance doesn't operate on wildfire. Finance operates on math. Your CFO walks in and asks a completely fair question: if we spend this, what do we get back? And you have to give them an answer. You have to give them bare minimum. That's the job. But understand what that tension actually costs you, because marketing requires risk. Not nice-to-have risk, required risk. You can be mediocre successful playing it safe. You can hit the forecast every quarter and never make a single think about anybody remembers. But if you want to truly be successful, you have to take the swing that finance can't model yet. So the real question isn't which one of, of you is right, it's whether your company is built to survive the number you can't promise.
