9 of the most impactful CMOs share their lessons from 2024—and predictions for 2025

As the year 2024 comes to an end, I’m looking back and thinking about what a marketer’s calendar looked like. Given the pace of culture, it’s measured less in months, days, and weeks, and more in hours. Yet there are moments and events that anchor so much brand activity, from the Super Bowl, to the Olympics, sports playoffs to award shows. Meanwhile, there are the constant cultural moments created by an always-on audience that brands are both excited and terrified by. Oh, and then there was a major U.S. election and the continued rise of AI. Pretty mellow year, all told, right?

The role of the chief marketing officer is ever-evolving, and often bespoke to the company and brands with which they work. But the job has become more complicated, and it’s a crucial linchpin to commercial growth and success. In order to succeed, marketing execs must continuously straddle the growing collection of media and platforms to elevate their brands’ cultural resonance, and connect to audiences.

We recently announced our inaugural Brands That Matter CMOs of the Year list, so there may be no one better to talk to than these marketing execs at the top of their game. I asked nine of them about lessons from the past year, issues to face in the coming year, and what will be the biggest development or shift marketers and brands can expect in 2025.

Lessons from 2024

“Trust is everything, and the benefits of trust compound exponentially. Our DoorDash-All-The-Ads campaign benefited from an extraordinarily high level of trust, developed at warp speed and in real-time. Given that it was novel, we had to trust that we could pull it off, the business had to trust that it would deliver, and we had to trust every advertiser in the Super Bowl with our idea and have them do the same with us—versus the standard practice of everyone holding their cards incredibly close to the vest. When in doubt, trust.” —DoorDash CMO Kofi Amoo-Gottfried

“Thinking expansively, pushing the boundaries and stretching the limits. No one fits into any one box. You can love red lipstick and heavy metal, you can excel at STEM and be a sports fan, you can be purpose-led and results driven. My vocabulary centers around ‘and’ and ‘all,’ not ‘or’. And that’s how we’re fueling our disruptive marketing engine, expanding our unaided brand awareness from 13% in 2020 to 33% in 2024. The progress we’re making is exceptional and the e.l.f.ing limit does not exist.” —E.l.f. Beauty CMO Kory Marchisotto

“Because of the divisiveness in the country, there was a lot of fear and concern coming from marketers about communicating anything that might come off as political or leaning one direction or another. I think we all learned the brands that stayed consistent with their core values won out. At the NFL, we chose not to abandon or shrink our core programs that were focused on being a force for good, and ultimately, we will come out of 2024 with a stronger brand.” —National Football League CMO Tim Ellis

“This year we saw that focus really matters. Too often as brands we try to be all things to all people and miss the beauty of focus. The simplicity in doing a few things in extraordinary ways made a significant difference in our ability to break through, resonate deeply, but more importantly, actually make meaningful change around the issues we focused on. Whether those were customer experiences, product enhancements, or marketing platforms we cared about like continual change in the space of women’s sports. Our focus allowed deeper levels of investment, a more concentrated presence and more authenticity in our actions.” —Ally Financial CMO Andrea Brimmer

Most significant issue of 2025

“There’s this fascinating tension between change being hard and something that humans are psychologically averse to, and operating a high-growth business within the context of the dramatically accelerated technological, economic, and societal shifts we’ve seen over the past few years. So, in many ways, I believe the most significant challenge is building a resilient, agile, and creative organization that can adapt and evolve at the pace of culture, and to do this without losing a sense of ourselves or what we’re trying to accomplish.” —DoorDash CMO Kofi Amoo-Gottfried

“We will continue to strike the right balance between leaning into technical innovations and data-powered marketing with high creativity and working to make people truly feel something from our communications. It’s never been so important to encourage and drive toward emotional storytelling. With increasing focus on efficiencies and marketing attribution for every dollar spent, we need to have the courage to continue to create high-impact marketing that will break through and achieve an emotional connection with our fans.” —National Football League CMO Tim Ellis

“The most significant issue next year will continue to be the relentless pace of technology evolution—particularly AI—and the pressure to implement more holistically across the marketing ecosystem. AI is infiltrating literally every aspect of marketing from creative development, to consumer segmentation, to process and operations. The pressure to pick up the pace, find real efficiencies and drive great value never abates for marketers. Those that are not rapidly ideating and implementing around AI will start to get left behind—‘wait and see’ is not a mode we can be in anymore. I believe the pressure for greater adoption and utilization will be significant for marketers.” —Ally Financial CMO Andrea Brimmer

“The social landscape is evolving: changes in ownership of platforms, the regulatory landscape, even threats of platforms getting banned altogether. Of course, it’s pushed our marketing team to adapt, add new platforms to our mix, and find the up and coming spaces. But the creativity that bubbles up on these platforms is a big inspiration for me and the work I lead. Tapping into the collective storytelling in these spaces helps me understand what people are excited about, and it helps me think about how to connect with our viewers. If these platforms were to go away, it would be a loss to the broader creative community.” —Tubi CMO Nicole Parlapiano

“Talent. Today, marketers have to be tech-savvy, data savvy, financially savvy and marketing savvy in the traditional sense. Right- and left-brained thinkers. This is very hard to find, and the most important thing we can do as leaders. And, for our current teams, it’s essential that we focus on upskilling and reskilling so that they are equipped to navigate an ever-complex world. Our people are the brains, and the heart, behind everything that we do.” —Mastercard CMO Raja Rajamannar

Biggest 2025 development for marketers

“AI will continue to be a huge deal, not just because it will change how we work, but because it will put a premium on developing and delivering truly original creativity. Good enough content and storytelling will be commoditized and no longer good enough to drive differentiation, which will require us all to find that next gear.” —DoorDash CMO Kofi Amoo-Gottfried

“There’s no question that every marketer is now focused on how to manage the opportunities with AI. Like any new technological innovation, we will all need to determine how to harness its power and potential, without allowing it to mute or lessen big new ideas and creativity. We will certainly do everything we can to take advantage of the opportunities with AI as it relates to speed, distribution of messages and data, but we will also continue to embrace big, bold ideas that are truly new and innovative.” —NFL CMO Tim Ellis

“We have entered a period of constant change and disruption, which creates an opening for innovative and fearless marketers. The rapid pace of new technology provides a tremendous opportunity for enhanced marketing campaigns, more personalized messaging and additional cutting-edge efforts across all marketing mediums, but marketers must embrace innovation and be unafraid in the face of change.” —Disney chief brand officer Asad Ayaz

“The culture chasm will continue to widen and navigating cultural relevance will be trickier than ever for brands and marketers. We are witnessing unprecedented changes in consumer sentiment, attitude and behavior. The political and societal divide is moving in highly bifurcated directions The notion of showing up in culture, so central to brand relevance the last several years, is becoming more complex to define. Many brands will struggle and get it wrong in 2025, underscoring the importance of authenticity in each brand action and alignment with what shareholders, employees and customers expect from your brand.” —Ally Financial CMO Andrea Brimmer

“In our sector, next year presents a double-helix dilemma. It’s the first year since the pandemic when releases will be back to capacity, while at the same time people are attending fewer movies. The competition to stand above and apart with every title will be intense.” —Universal Pictures CMO Michael Moses

“Generative AI will continue to be a hot topic as marketers determine how they can thoughtfully apply it, not only to make processes more efficient, but also in an attempt to personalize content. I am energized and excited about what we’re doing at American Express, as we focus on how to use Gen AI to make our colleagues more productive, enhance data protection, and improve many experiences for our customers.” —American Express CMO Elizabeth Rutledge

“We began with AI, progressed to Generative AI, and are now entering the next transformative phase: agentic AI. This is the game changer. Unlike traditional or Generative AI, where you ask for answers and then act on them yourself, agentic AI takes care of everything—from providing recommendations to executing tasks on your behalf. For instance, instead of merely suggesting the best flight options, the AI agent will book them for you.

This shift has profound implications for the convenience of consumers, as they delegate decision-making to AI. For marketers, it’s imperative to adapt, remain relevant and find ways to integrate into this evolving purchase funnel. Brands must ensure they are the preferred brand—not only for consumers but for their AI agents.” —Mastercard CMO Raja Rajamannar