What Most CEOs Get Wrong About Marketing Strategy

There’s a familiar rhythm to executive life. The forecasts get approved. The budgets are allocated. The board packs are reviewed. And somewhere, buried between operational metrics and hiring plans, sits a tab labelled “Marketing.”

It’s usually followed by a healthy chunk of spend, a performance report, and a few key questions:

“Are we getting ROI?”
“What’s working?”
“Do we need to increase budget for Q3?”

Rarely – almost never – does the conversation pause long enough to ask something more fundamental: What is our marketing strategy actually for?

Not what it’s producing. Not how it’s performing. But what it means.

This is the blind spot. And it’s not limited to small businesses.

 

Introduction – The Strategic Blind Spot

From FTSE 250 giants to venture-backed scaleups, I’ve sat across from CEOs who could recite their P&L down to the decimal but couldn’t articulate their company’s message beyond a tagline. Their marketing departments were busy – very busy. But they weren’t anchored. They were turning out content, tweaking campaigns, buying media, testing channels – all without a clear sense of direction.

They were optimising noise. Not meaning.

It’s not because these leaders don’t care. In fact, most care deeply. But they’ve been conditioned to see marketing through the wrong lens – as a cost centre, a communications team, a bolt-on department whose job is to “get the word out.”

The real purpose of marketing has been lost. And when that happens, so is the business.
Because in a world saturated with information, marketing is not just about growth. It is about meaning.

And meaning is a leadership issue – not a departmental one.

This white paper is not a tactical guide.

It’s an invitation:

• To revisit what marketing is
• To rethink your role in shaping it
• And to reflect on what your message really says – not to investors, but to people

Because what every CEO gets wrong about marketing strategy isn’t just technical. It’s philosophical.
It’s about who you are, what you’re building, and whether anyone would miss you if you stopped tomorrow.

 

1. Mistaking Activity for Strategy

In most businesses, strategy is defined by what’s done – not by what’s decided.

You launch campaigns. You test channels. You hire an agency, run a brand refresh, update the website.

It feels strategic because it’s active.

You can see movement, feel progress. But movement isn’t the same as direction.

And activity is not the same as strategy. This is the first – and most common – mistake.

 

The Marketing Treadmill

Many marketing departments are trapped on a treadmill of deliverables. Content calendars. Paid ads. Product launches. Webinars. Reports. Social posts.
There’s always something being shipped, promoted, or iterated.

But when you step back and ask, “What’s the underlying strategy?” – the answer is often a shrug.

There’s a plan, yes. A document with objectives and KPIs. But a strategy?

A real one?

The kind that forces clarity about who you are, who you’re for, what you stand against, and why you matter?
That’s harder to find.

Too often, “strategy” becomes a justification for more – more channels, more content, more features, more campaigns.

But good strategy isn’t additive. It’s selective.

It clarifies. It excludes. It says no.

Not because of budget. But because of conviction. And conviction – not efficiency – is what builds brands.

 

The Cost of Vague Positioning

Here’s what happens when activity replaces strategy:

• Your messaging becomes diluted
• Your team becomes reactive
• Your brand starts to imitate, not differentiate
•  Your audience loses interest

I once worked with a tech company whose homepage boasted the phrase:

“We simplify complex solutions for dynamic businesses.”

It sounded polished. Professional. Safe. It also meant absolutely nothing.
When I asked the CEO to define what made them different, he paused, looked at the ceiling, and said, “Well… our people are really good.” That’s not a strategy. That’s wishful thinking.

Vagueness is expensive. It leads to campaigns that don’t convert. Sales pitches that don’t stick. Messaging that disappears into the digital fog.

And yet, it’s rampant – especially among businesses that scale too fast without sharpening their core.

True marketing strategy begins where most boardroom conversations end – not with tactics, but with identity.

 

Why You Can’t Afford Generic

The world does not need another newsletter. Or another brand video. Or another product demo explaining what your software does.

What it needs – what your audience needs – is resonance.

They need to feel like you see them. Understand them. Stand for something that matters in their world.

That doesn’t come from quarterly planning.

It comes from strategic alignment – where the leadership team has wrestled with the hard questions:

• Why do we exist?
• What do we believe about the future?
• Who are we not for?
• What are we willing to say – and what are we willing to leave unsaid?

Most businesses never take that time. They get busy. They get profitable. They grow.

And then one day they realise – nobody knows what they stand for.

At that point, it’s not just a marketing issue. It’s a strategic crisis.

 

The Subtraction Principle

The best marketing strategies are often the simplest.

But simplicity is hard-won. It comes through saying no – to vague messaging, broad targeting, weak compromises.

It’s tempting to think more marketing equals more impact.

But in truth, impact comes from focus. From consistency. From repeating the same meaningful message until it becomes part of your market’s memory.

Subtraction is not neglect. It’s discipline.

And discipline is what distinguishes enduring brands from forgettable ones.

 

2. The Absentee Leader Problem

Every business has a message. Some are bold and clear. Most are vague and inherited.

And too often, they’re delivered by people who didn’t write them. Somewhere along the way, the CEO stepped back – not from the business, but from the brand. From the message. From the meaning.

The result?

Marketing that speaks without conviction. Campaigns that perform without resonance. A brand that communicates, but doesn’t connect.

This is the second mistake: CEOs delegate marketing too early – and too completely.

 

When Vision Gets Outsourced

It makes sense at first. You’re scaling. You’re hiring specialists. You bring in a Head of Marketing, a Content Lead, an agency.

You think: “I need to get out of the way so they can do their jobs.”

And you should – to a point. You don’t need to write every tweet. You don’t need to approve every visual. But here’s the nuance:

• You cannot delegate voice.
• You cannot outsource conviction.
• You can’t expect your team to express what you haven’t articulated.

Yet this happens all the time. A founder builds a business from scratch, full of fire and vision – but as the company grows, that fire becomes a monthly newsletter written by someone who’s never heard them speak from the heart.

The soul of the business fades into silence. And no amount of campaign spend can recover it.

 

The Cost of Absence

When the CEO is absent from the marketing message, it shows.

• Messaging becomes corporate, not compelling
• Brand values become bullet points, not beliefs
• Campaigns mimic competitors rather than leading customers

I’ve reviewed marketing strategies where not a single line reflected the founder’s convictions. I’ve seen taglines approved because they “tested well” – even though they had no bearing on the company’s origin, mission or future. I’ve sat with leadership teams who couldn’t articulate the difference between their brand voice and their CRM software.

When that happens, the business may still grow – but it won’t lead.

Because leadership is not just operational. It’s emotional. And your market can feel the difference.

 

Presence Is Not Performance

To be clear, this isn’t a call for CEOs to turn into influencers.

You don’t need to be loud. You need to be anchored. Your presence doesn’t have to be constant – but it does need to be felt.

You don’t need to post daily – but your message must permeate.

The best marketing leaders I’ve worked with didn’t operate in isolation. They worked with the CEO. Not just to understand the product, but to absorb the point of view.
Because in the absence of clarity, they’ll default to safety. And safe messaging rarely moves markets.

Think about the leaders whose brands echo their voice:

• Steve Jobs didn’t just launch products – he made people believe in simplicity, elegance, and rebellion.
• Anita Roddick didn’t just sell cosmetics – she built a movement around ethics and justice.
• Simon Sinek didn’t just build a consultancy – he asked a question that became a mantra: Start with Why.

These leaders didn’t just fund marketing. They authored it. And that authorship is what made their brands endure.

 

The CEO as Chief Meaning Officer

In today’s economy, attention is expensive – but trust is priceless.

Your customers want to know not just what you do, but why you do it. They want transparency, consistency, values that stretch beyond shareholder returns.

That doesn’t mean every CEO needs to become a brand evangelist. But it does mean accepting that meaning starts at the top.

• If your marketing doesn’t reflect your convictions, change it.
• If your team doesn’t know your point of view, share it.
• If your story has drifted, reclaim it.

Because in a noisy world, clarity is rare. And when leadership brings that clarity, the rest of the business aligns around it.

 

Presence Builds Culture

There’s one more layer here.

Marketing isn’t just external. It’s internal, too.

Every time you articulate the “why,” you’re not just communicating with customers – you’re forming the culture that delivers your product, serves your clients, and represents your brand. And culture isn’t shaped by policies. It’s shaped by presence.

When a CEO speaks clearly, the message travels.

It shows up in onboarding. In sales decks. In how your team talks to each other and to the world.

That’s how brands are built – from the inside out.

And it starts with the person at the top.

In the next section, we’ll explore what happens when marketing is reconnected to purpose – when it stops being a function, and starts becoming a force. A force for trust, for relevance, for long-term impact.

Because the final mistake many CEOs make isn’t tactical. It’s existential. They forget that marketing, when done well, is not a means to an end.
It is a mirror – and a legacy.

 

3. The Forgotten Purpose of Marketing

We’ve confused the purpose of marketing.

Somewhere along the line, it was reduced to a tool – a lever to pull for lead gen, a vehicle for promotion, a line item to justify with numbers and dashboards.
Useful, yes. Measurable, certainly. But detached from meaning.

Ask most CEOs what marketing is for, and you’ll hear some variation of:

“To drive growth.”
“To increase awareness.”
“To generate demand.”

And yet… those are outcomes. Not purposes.

The purpose of marketing is not to get attention. It’s to deserve it. To earn trust. To speak truth. To help people make better decisions.
Marketing, at its best, serves. It clarifies. It connects. It contributes.

When we lose sight of that, we don’t just risk poor performance.

We risk building something forgettable.

From Transaction to Transformation

Many businesses have become addicted to short-term wins.

• Clicks over clarity

• Funnels over fidelity

• Visibility over value

And so they launch offer after offer. A/B test every landing page. Automate their outreach to the point of sterility.
But in doing so, they forget the most powerful form of marketing: transformation.

Helping people become who they want to be. Solving problems that matter. Standing for something bigger than price points and product specs.
The brands we remember – the ones we trust – do more than sell.

• They make us feel seen.
• They align with our values.
• They elevate the conversation.
• They don’t just compete in markets.
• They reshape them.

 

Trust Is Not a Metric – It’s a Mandate

We talk a lot about performance marketing. But the greatest marketing challenge of our time isn’t performance.

It’s permission.

People are tuning out.

They’re swiping, blocking, unsubscribing, ignoring.

Not because there’s too much content – but because there’s too little truth.

Too many companies trying to be clever, not enough trying to be clear.

And so trust becomes the ultimate differentiator.

But here’s the part many CEOs miss:

Trust is not a marketing goal. It’s a business ethic.
You can’t brand your way into it. You have to earn it – and that starts with alignment between message and reality.

• If your marketing says you’re customer-first, but your call centre waits are 40 minutes long, no funnel will fix that.
• If your brand promotes sustainability but your supply chain tells another story, no logo refresh will hold.
• If you promise value but deliver volume, your conversions may rise – but your reputation will leak.

Marketing can carry the promise. But the business must keep it.

 

Marketing as a Force for Culture

Here’s a deeper truth: marketing doesn’t just reflect culture. It shapes it.

The messages your business puts out don’t just influence your sales pipeline. They influence people’s decisions, beliefs, identities. They form the social air we all breathe.That’s not a small responsibility.

In that sense, marketing is never neutral.

It either dignifies or distracts. It deepens the conversation or dulls it. It tells people they are more than consumers – or reduces them to data points in a dashboard.

And CEOs set the tone.

What you approve. What you incentivise. What you ignore. It all flows down into messaging, creative, campaigns.

You are not just building a brand. You are shaping how people see the world. That’s a sacred duty. Treat it as such.

 

Legacy Over Likes

Ultimately, the question is not “Is our marketing working?”

It’s “Is our marketing worthy?” – Worthy of attention. Worthy of trust. Worthy of the people it seeks to serve.

The metrics matter. But meaning matters more. And meaning doesn’t happen by accident.

It happens when CEOs get back into the conversation. Not to control it. But to centre it on something that lasts.

 

Conclusion – From Messenger to Meaning-Maker

What every CEO gets wrong about marketing isn’t really about campaigns or channels.

It’s about role.

Marketing has become something to manage. When in fact, it should be something to lead.

You don’t have to be the voice. But you must shape the voice.
You don’t have to write the message. But you must live it.

Because here’s the truth:

• Your team will echo your clarity – or your confusion.
• Your market will feel your presence – or your absence.
• Your message will reflect your values – or your silence.

In the age of automation and AI, the human voice matters more than ever. And the human behind the business must be more than a figurehead.

You are the custodian of meaning. The author of the why. The person who decides whether your brand is just a name – or a narrative.

So ask yourself:

• Do you know what your brand stands for?
• Does your marketing reflect it?
• And if not – what are you willing to change?

The future belongs to businesses that mean something. And it begins with leaders who are willing to speak, clearly and courageously, from the top.