What CFOs Often Get Wrong About Marketing

Let’s talk about tension.

Because if there’s one person the CMO struggles with most in the boardroom, it’s usually the CFO.

And for good reason.

The CFO wants clarity, predictability, and control.
The marketer often brings ambiguity, time lags, and bets that take quarters to pay off.

But here’s the rub:
Too many CFOs apply short-term accounting logic to a long-term brand game.
And that’s where marketing dies a slow, underfunded death.

The Cost-Center Fallacy

If you treat marketing as a cost center a discretionary expense to cut when times get tough you’ve already lost.

Marketing isn’t a line item.
It’s the engine that builds preference, pricing power, and future demand.

You wouldn’t turn off your production line to save costs.
So why turn off the one thing that fills your pipeline?

ROI Obsession, Misapplied

CFOs want proof before investment.
Fair.

But marketing especially brand building doesn’t work like inventory.
It works like planting.

You don’t measure a seed by its daily growth.
You measure its harvest over seasons.

Brand strength compounds.
Memory builds slowly.
Mental availability creates margin.

If you kill the budget early because “the ROI isn’t there yet,” you just stopped the return before it could arrive.

What Great CFOs Understand

The smartest CFOs know that:

• Brand is a long-term asset, even if it’s not on the balance sheet.
• Marketing needs sustained investment, not fits and starts.
• Risk is managed with clarity, not fear and strategy, not spreadsheets.

They ask better questions:

• “Are we building mental availability or chasing spikes?”
• “Is this campaign aligned with our strategic positioning?”
• “Will this brand asset help reduce acquisition costs over time?”

Finance + Marketing = Commercial Firepower

This isn’t a war between departments.

The best businesses marry financial discipline with marketing courage.
They invest in ideas that move markets while measuring what matters.

The goal isn’t to “justify marketing.”

It’s to align it — with business growth, future value, and long-term cash flow.

Next up: Metrics That Matter and Metrics That Mislead
We’ll cut through the noise and talk about what CEOs should really be tracking in marketing.

But before that,

Are you cutting brand spend because it’s not working or because you don’t know how it works?

Let us help. Call us now at ‪‪+60378901079‬‬ or visit us at ‪roar-point.com‬