70% of Indian CMOs Say the Same Thing — You Can’t Prove It
of surveyed Indian marketing leaders name short-termism / ROI pressure as their single biggest challenge
The survey that named the real problem
The India CMO Index 2026, published by The CMO Assembly on 27 May 2026 from 121 anonymous responses across 11 industries, asked senior Indian marketing leaders to name their single biggest challenge. Seventy percent said the same thing: short-termism, or pressure to prove ROI on every rupee, every quarter.
That is not “marketing is hard.” It is a specific, structural complaint from people who are, by their own account, winning inside their companies. The same survey found 85% of respondents say their organisational influence has grown over the past three years — more seats at the table, more say in strategy. But only 21% report high confidence in their current marketing setup. Influence went up. The systems underneath it did not.
This is not an India-only story. It is where the pressure comes from that makes India’s version sharper. Indian D2C acquisition costs have been climbing for three straight years — industry benchmarking puts blended CAC at roughly ₹800–1,200 in 2023, rising to an estimated ₹1,800–2,500 by 2025. Treat that specific range as an illustrative estimate from trade commentary, not an audited figure — but the direction is not in dispute. Performance-only growth got more expensive every year this decade. The old move — “just spend more on ads when brand feels slow” — stopped being cheap, right as boards started asking sharper questions about every line item.
Why 70% isn’t even the number that should worry you
Here’s the part of the report that explains the 70%, rather than just restating it. Ninety-three percent of the same respondents admit meaningful gaps in their marketing measurement — spanning brand impact, attribution, influencer ROI, incrementality, and retention/LTV. Only 7% say measurement is genuinely sorted. Only about 12% say AI is meaningfully embedded in how they work, which rules out “we’ll fix it with a tool” as a near-term answer.
Short-termism isn’t a mindset problem. It’s a measurement problem wearing a mindset problem’s clothes. A CFO doesn’t cut brand spend because they hate brand. They cut it because performance spend comes with a number attached and brand spend usually doesn’t — and in a budget review, the line with a number always wins the line without one.
Put those two stats side by side and the mechanism is obvious: 70% feel the pressure because 93% have no defence against it. This is a global pattern too, not unique to India — IBM’s 2025 global CMO Study (1,800 CMOs/CSOs, 33 geographies) found 63% of Indian CMOs specifically under direct pressure to deliver profitability, and 53% accountable for revenue growth. Only 26% of Indian marketers in that same study said they had the talent needed to meet their objectives over the next two years. The pressure is confirmed by two separate, independently-run studies a year apart. The gap under it is the same in both.
What it costs you when the number isn’t there
Run the arithmetic on a mid-sized D2C operator. Say you’re doing ₹8Cr a year in revenue, spending ₹6L a month — ₹72L a year — on brand-building content and creative. CAC has drifted from ₹1,400 to ₹2,100 over twelve months, inside the range the industry data describes. At the next quarterly review, someone proposes cutting the brand line in half and redirecting ₹36L into Meta.
If you cannot answer “what did the ₹72L do” with a number, you have already lost that argument, regardless of whether you’re right. This is not hypothetical — it is what 44% of the surveyed CMOs say they would do the moment budgets tighten: prioritise performance over brand. Note this is stated intent under a hypothetical scenario in the survey, not a measured outcome — nobody tracked actual 2026 budget cuts. But it tells you what the room defaults to under pressure, and defaults are what matter in a fifteen-minute agenda item.
The cost isn’t just the ₹36L. It’s every quarter after that one, because once brand spend gets cut without a fight, it’s cut faster the next time — there’s no precedent of it earning its place.
The gap between what leaders say and what they’d actually do
The India CMO Index found 53% of respondents describe their current brand/performance split as balanced — and in the same breath, 44% say performance wins the moment budgets get cut. Those two numbers describe the same group of people holding two different positions depending on whether they’re speaking in principle or under pressure. Vivek Sheth, founder of The CMO Assembly, has framed the report’s purpose as capturing “what CMOs actually experience, not what they are expected to say” — which is exactly the gap this stat exposes: the stated belief and the actual fallback plan are not the same document.
Where does your org actually sit?
Rate each statement 0 (never true) to 2 (always true).
1. We can name the specific number that would justify keeping the brand budget if challenged today.
2. Someone other than the person who ran the brand campaign tracks its result.
3. We have at least one brand-health metric with more than two data points logged.
4. Our budget approval process looks at brand spend over a full year, not quarter by quarter.
If your org’s honest score on the scorecard above is a 2, the 53%-balanced answer you’d give in a strategy deck is not describing your budget. It’s describing your intentions.
The fix: build the number before you need it
You don’t need a data science team. You need two or three cheap, ongoing proxies that exist before the next review, so brand spend walks into that meeting with evidence instead of conviction.
Brand Defensibility Checklist — track these four, starting this month
- Branded search share — % of your category search volume that includes your brand name. Pull it from Google Search Console or GA4 monthly. Rising share = brand spend is working even when CAC looks flat.
- Direct + organic traffic share — % of site sessions that aren’t paid. If this climbs while ad spend holds steady, brand is doing acquisition work performance channels get credited for.
- Repeat-purchase rate — % of orders from returning customers, tracked monthly. Brand-led buyers repeat more; this is the metric that ties brand spend to margin, not just top-of-funnel awareness.
- Small-sample unaided recall — ask 20–30 people in your target segment “name a brand in this category” before and after a campaign, no prompting. Costs a few hours, not a research budget.
- Pick two of the four proxies above — don’t try to run all four on week one
- Log a baseline number this month, before anyone proposes a cut
- Put the baseline in writing somewhere your co-founder or CFO already looks (the same deck as CAC and ROAS)
- Set a review date three months out, not “whenever it comes up”
- Agree in advance what number would justify keeping the budget — write it down before you need it, not while defending it
None of these require new software. They require someone deciding, this week, to start logging a number that currently doesn’t exist anywhere in the company.
Where the pressure is coming from — and where it isn’t
70% cite short-termism/ROI pressure as their biggest challenge; 93% have measurement gaps.
Use as: India-specific, directional — not a census.
63% of Indian CMOs under direct pressure to deliver profitability; 26% confident in team talent.
Use as: corroborates the India CMO Index a year earlier, global sample with an India slice.
Marketing budgets flat at 7.8% of revenue, down roughly 18% over four years.
Use as: global backdrop only — do not use as a target ratio for an Indian D2C brand at a completely different revenue scale.
| Survey | Sample | Geography | Headline finding | How to use it |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| India CMO Index 2026 | 121 senior marketers | India, 11 industries | 70% cite ROI/short-termism pressure | Primary evidence — India-specific |
| IBM CMO Study 2025 | ~1,800 CMOs/CSOs | 33 countries (India slice) | 63% of Indian CMOs under profitability pressure | Corroborating context, same conclusion |
| Gartner CMO Spend Survey 2026 | 401 CMOs | North America/UK/Europe, mostly $1B+ revenue | Budgets flat at 7.8% of revenue | Global backdrop only — not a benchmark to copy |
Three separate research groups, three different samples, one consistent signal: marketing leaders are being asked to prove ROI harder than the systems around them can support. None of these studies tell you what percentage of revenue your brand should spend — that number depends on your margin, your category, and your stage. What they tell you is that the pressure is real, structural, and not going away because you had one good quarter.
2023–2025 · the pressure builds-
Indian D2C blended CAC rises from an estimated ₹800–1,200 to ₹1,200–1,800 per customer (industry commentary, illustrative range). Performance-first playbooks start compressing margins.
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IBM’s global CMO Study finds 63% of Indian CMOs under direct pressure to prove profitability. The shift from “brand custodian” to “P&L owner” is already visible.
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Trade commentary starts noting brand-building budget “creeping back” into Indian media plans as pure-performance CAC hits a ceiling.
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Gartner’s global survey finds marketing budgets flat at 7.8% of revenue — the funding environment stays tight worldwide, brand spend included.
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The CMO Assembly publishes the India CMO Index 2026: 70% cite short-termism as their top challenge, 93% admit measurement gaps.
The India CMO Index 2026 didn’t discover that Indian marketing leaders feel pressure — everyone running a budget already knew that. What it proved is where the pressure wins: not in the boardroom argument about whether brand matters, but in the absence of a number when someone asks what it did. Fix the measurement gap and the short-termism argument mostly answers itself, because you’re no longer defending a belief — you’re reading a result.
Pick two proxies from the checklist above. Log the first number this month. Do it before the next budget conversation forces the question, not during it.
- India CMO Index 2026 headline stat table — 70% cite short-termism/ROI pressure, 85% report rising influence, 21% high confidence in setup — afaqs.com coverage
- Full India CMO Index 2026 stat table — 93% measurement gaps, 53% claim balance, 44% would cut brand first, sample size and methodology — adtechtoday.com coverage
- IBM 2025 CMO Study — 63% profitability pressure, 53% revenue accountability, 26% talent confidence (India) — Campaign India coverage
- Gartner 2026 CMO Spend Survey — global marketing budgets flat at 7.8% of revenue — Marketscale coverage
- Indian D2C blended CAC estimate, ₹800–₹2,500 range 2023–2025 (industry blog, illustrative estimate) — frameleads.com
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