From Fluff to Force: How Marketing Earns Its Seat at the Table.

Tina Müller’s take on strong marketing.

In a world full of Q4 campaigns, viral videos, and endless buzzwords, Tina Müller brings a sharp reminder: Marketing without impact is just fluff. In our recent conversation, the former CMO shared a belief that’s as bold as it is necessary:
“If marketing has no impact — maybe do something else.”

The real job of marketing?

That’s not just a hot take. It’s a wake-up call.
To move markets, shift behavior, and fuel growth — not just polish PowerPoints. And most importantly: to strengthen the CEO. “Make the CEO successful, and everything else follows,” Tina said. “But that comes with responsibility. You can’t hide behind a nice campaign. You need to own your role as a strategic growth driver.”

No seat at the table? Take it.

Tina makes it clear: no one will hand marketing a seat at the leadership table. CMOs have to deserve it — and claim it. She’s seen it firsthand. At Unilever, marketing was in the company’s DNA. At Kraft Heinz, it wasn’t — and the result, she says, was one of the most value-destructive mergers of the last decade. “If you don’t understand the consumer goods business — the brands, the products, the habits — and you run the company by spreadsheet, things break.”

Impact isn’t optional.

The best marketers link their work directly to business results: innovation, revenue, market share, consumer behavior. The worst ones? Still chasing vanity metrics and abstract brand equity scores. Marketing is not an arts and crafts department. It’s a growth engine.

CFO’s want more.

I shared a study we ran at Spikes on CFO-CMO dynamics. The surprise? CFOs don’t just want ROI reports — they want CMOs who help build new markets. That’s a much bigger job. And a much more exciting one. “That’s true,” Tina said. “Because then you’re driving the business forward.”

The takeaway – In Tina’s world, and increasingly in ours, marketers must think like business leaders first, brand people second. Show impact. Claim your space. And make your work impossible to ignore. Because the world doesn’t need more fluff. It needs force.