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The 3Cs strategic framework is a concept that will be familiar to all marketers as an aid to differentiate your product or service. But a version of it should also be used as a checklist for effective marketing leadership.
Customers: are you identifying and serving their needs? Pretty much the job, right? All good things flow from there. Without diagnosis, research, orientation or empathy, your product or service proposition and distribution will be less effective.
Company: are you doing all the above really well, and in a profitable way that delivers the kind of tangible outcomes that make conversations with the boss that bit less challenging? Darn it, even enjoyable.
Colleagues: the marketers in your team looking for direction, development and support.
At the best of times, successfully balancing and executing all three isn’t easy. Really bloody hard in less than propitious environments.
In B2B and B2C, customers are feeling the pinch, their needs evolving. And as a consequence, many companies are looking very carefully at costs, with marketing often seen as discretionary and flexible planning and budgeting paramount. And all of this has an inevitable impact on the wellbeing of your colleagues.
Marketing Week’s Career & Salary Survey earlier this year captured this worrying state. Of the more than 3,500 marketers that responded, 58.1% felt overwhelmed, 50.8% reported emotional exhaustion and almost half didn’t enjoy their work anymore.
It’s a collective challenge for the industry. And an additional layer of responsibility for marketing leaders who must fly the flag for all constituents and for marketing itself.
It’s tough and unlikely to get markedly better in the near term. But that’s not cause for despondency. Indeed, there’s never been a more important time to champion excellence.
And that’s the objective of Marketing Week’s Top 100, sponsored by Digitas. A celebration and illustration of what highly effective marketing leadership looks like. What we present here is the product of months of research and debate. We cast our net wide, selecting a longlist for 10 category groupings, capturing marketers from health and life sciences to SaaS providers, which is then passed to our judging panel of discerning, experienced marketing luminaries. In other words, a bunch of people who know what good looks like. Collectively, a barometer of excellence. Huge thanks to them for their time and counsel.
Congratulations to our Top 100. Your selection follows a long and rigorous process that saw many of your peers fall out of contention. You should be proud of your inclusion and validated for your achievements. In challenging times, your appreciation and execution of the 3Cs of effective marketing leadership is to be admired and lauded.
At Digitas, we believe the future of marketing rests on two essentials: connectivity and truth. Connectivity, because the brands that endure are those that bring people, platforms and ideas together seamlessly. Truth, because effectiveness doesn’t come from smoke and mirrors, but from creating work that resonates, feels authentic, and earns trust.
That’s why we’re proud to sponsor Marketing Week's 2025 Top 100. This list celebrates leaders who don’t simply chase the latest trend but ground their work in clarity and conviction. They’re connecting data with creativity, customers with experiences, and businesses with growth, while staying true to what really matters.
To those recognised: congratulations. You’re proof that marketing at its best is not only powerful, but purposeful. And to the wider industry, let’s continue to shape brands and ideas that connect deeply and tell the truth boldly.
Russell Parsons
Editor-in-chief, Marketing Week
Anne Stagg CEO Digitas
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