Dive Brief:
- L'Oréal and General Assembly are launching a new assessment for marketers, called the Certified Marketer Level 1 (CM1), which was created by the Marketing Standards Board to measure the essential skills that marketers need in today's digital ecosystem, according to a news release provided to Marketing Dive.
- With the CM1, marketers can compare their skill sets against an industry-wide benchmark, and employers can easily identify potential candidates for marketing roles. The new standard reflects the most current and forward-looking needs that employers have for marketers. It consists of a one-hour assessment, which asks test-takers to solve problems that they would likely encounter on the job so that they can demonstrate their skills in customer insight, creative development, marketing channels and execution, measurement, analytics and marketing technology.
- L'Oréal and General Assembly previously launched the Digital Marketing Level 1 (DM1) in 2016. Since then, L'Oréal has assessed more than 5,000 employees and more than 4,000 candidates.
Dive Insight:
As marketing becomes more digitally focused, the CMO role continues to evolve, and finding candidates with adequate digital marketing skills is a challenge for brands. L'Oréal is attempting to lead the way on addressing this issue, and the new CM1 is a major step in establishing a universal standard for digital skills.
For companies hiring marketers, it's important to understand that experience in marketing doesn't necessarily reflect digital marketing acuity. A survey by General Assembly of digital marketing skills found a significant skill set gap between corporate marketers who work at long-standing companies — who earned an average score of 44% — and digital native marketers, who had an average score of 76%. The new certification could help marketers better understand employees' digital marketing skill set.
Marketers skilled in digital are important as this area continues to grow in importance for companies even as they continue to struggle in key areas. Over the next year, 82% of marketers plan to increase their digital marketing spend, according to Nielsen's CMO Report. However, most marketers aren't confident in their ability to measure ROI on digital. Also, many are focusing on consumer-centric, omnichannel strategies and have expressed a need for better marketing technology to integrate consumer data and insights across channels. In 2019, 64% of marketers plan to increase their digital marketing budgets "marginally," according to Ascend2 research. Marketers are focusing on sales prospects and leads, increasing customer acquisition, improving measurability and improving brand awareness.
The growth in digital is driving change in the skill set required for marketers at all levels. About 90% agree that the role of the CMO has changed over the past two years and think it will continue to shift over the next couple of years, and 87% realize that traditional experiences are no longer enough to satisfy consumers, according to an Accenture Interactive report conducted by Forrester. More marketers are embracing the role of "CMO Collaborator" to think beyond traditional brand advertising and communications.