Welcome to the era where running is building.
Marketing has always evolved—but never this fast, and never with such high stakes. Today’s CMOs are being asked to deliver more, with less, across an expanding maze of touchpoints, technologies, and expectations. The playbook has changed. Strategy can no longer stop at vision decks or transformation programs. It must scale in real time. It must run.
At Deloitte Digital, we believe it’s time to replace the old binary of “build or buy” with a new mantra: Run is the new Build. This article explores why—and how—CMOs can activate this mindset to deliver impact now, while architecting sustainable growth for the future.
Setting the Scene: The Shift Has Already Happened
Marketing is no longer a siloed function. It is the nerve center of the enterprise, increasingly accountable for growth, customer experience, and strategic innovation. And the landscape keeps shifting.
From data overload to channel fragmentation, resource constraints, and the pressure to personalize at scale, CMOs face a “balancing act” unlike any other in the C-suite. The 2025 Deloitte report 'The CMO Balancing Act' defines this as the tension between delivering immediate results and building long-term brand value—not a choice between the two, but a demand for both, simultaneously.
To meet this challenge, CMOs must evolve their operating models. The path forward? A modern, dynamic framework built on three foundational levers: Content, Data, and Autonomy.
Enter the Triad: Content, Data, and Autonomy
Welcome to a model built for scale and agility. Our “new triad” reflects what high-performing marketing teams already know instinctively: running means executing—smartly, rapidly, and with clarity.
- Content /// Winning today requires quality creative at speed. Content at scale powers personalization, drives brand consistency, and creates relevance across channels. But it must be measured, modular, and production-ready.
- Data /// No more spray and pray. Marketing must be wired into real-time intelligence. 1st party data, smart segmentation, and predictive models are now non-negotiable to activate the right message at the right time.
- Autonomy /// Execution agility is a CMO’s secret weapon. Marketing teams need the tools, workflows, and governance to operate independently—yet in sync with the broader business. Autonomy means moving at the pace of your customer.
Together, these domains help CMOs achieve equilibrium—delivering short-term results while steering toward long-term strategic success.
Marketing Operate: Turning Strategy into Motion
At Deloitte Digital, we’ve transformed this philosophy into a tangible model: Marketing Operate. It’s our answer to CMOs who don’t just want ideas—they want a machine that runs, evolves, and scales. Marketing Operate helps organizations deliver, measure, and optimize client activation at every stage. It unlocks value across three high-impact plays:
Content Revolution
Manage the entire content supply chain, end-to-end. Create velocity without losing brand consistency. Adapt fast. Deliver faster.
Content Revolution
Manage the entire content supply chain, end-to-end. Create velocity without losing brand consistency. Adapt fast. Deliver faster.
Data-Driven Experience
Turn your data assets into dynamic, actionable insights that fuel personalization and decision-making across the funnel.
Data-Driven Experience
Turn your data assets into dynamic, actionable insights that fuel personalization and decision-making across the funnel.
Autonomous Marketing
Use AI, automation, and agile processes to scale operations, free up teams, and boost performance with fewer trade-offs.
These aren’t just capabilities—they’re levers to industrialize creativity, operationalize personalization, and run marketing like a modern engine.
Autonomous Marketing
Use AI, automation, and agile processes to scale operations, free up teams, and boost performance with fewer trade-offs.
These aren’t just capabilities—they’re levers to industrialize creativity, operationalize personalization, and run marketing like a modern engine.
CMO Momentum, Cannes Mindset
At Cannes Lions, one key theme echoed across every stage: the next wave of marketing won’t be defined by what you build—but by how well you run. Brands are no longer judged by their vision alone, but by their ability to deliver consistent, creative, connected experiences at scale. So ask yourself:
- Are your teams equipped to act on insight in real time?
- Are you scaling creativity without burning out resources?
- Is your marketing truly autonomous—or always waiting on the next transformation initiative?
If not, it may be time to reimagine your operating model.
Coming Up Next in This Series
This is just the starting point. In the next three articles, we’ll dive into each growth lever of Marketing Operate and explore how today’s marketing leaders are evolving to meet tomorrow head-on:
- Content (R)evolution
- From Insight to Impact – The Rise of Data-Driven Experience Ops
- Own the Next Frontier with Autonomous Marketing
Each one will offer real use cases, strategic insights, and actionable steps to help CMOs move from intent to impact.
Brendan Le Thuaut
Brendan is an experienced, entrepreneurial, and progressive leader driving Salesforce consulting services and client success. He leads the Salesforce practice of Deloitte in the Romandy area since September 2022 where he is dedicated to building cohesive and diverse teams, delivering technology in fun and innovative ways, and motivated bycreating winning outcomes for clients. Developing a passion about digital innovations, the cloud computing ecosystem and theirs impacts on the customer experience, Brendan has naturally chosen to specialize in salesforce-based solution deployments. This decision allowed him to carry out 30+ CRM implementations for major and medium international accounts and to build up a strong product expertise by obtaining 15+ salesforce certifications.