Like everything else in business, marketing has been buffeted by the winds of change over the last couple of decades. It is an increasing challenge to keep up – let alone advance – amid this ongoing disruption. 

To equip marketers with both a path to advancement and the tools they need to navigate this shifting landscape, the Canadian Marketing Association (CMA) developed and offers industry practitioners courses that ensure robust and well rounded marketing expertise and the right to use the designation ‘Chartered Marketer’ (CM) next to their names.

“It is the only marketing designation in the country,” says CMA’s CEO Alison Simpson. “It’s a powerful signal to employers and the broader business community that marketing is indeed an area of expertise. I’ve been a CMO and part of very diverse executive suites, and marketing doesn’t always have the credibility that a CFO or some of our executive colleagues have. So, this designation is an impactful way to help build that credibility for us as a profession.”

Any CMO who has sat in the executive boardroom between the CFO and the COO will tell you it’s all about the fight for funding. So if a marketer is not able to make a bulletproof case for why they should get a bigger piece of the pie, guess who wins? 

The CMA is here to help. When it began offering the CM designation in 2018, it offered one comprehensive program to young marketers with 2-3 years of experience that consisted of five courses and took about two years to complete. Senior practitioners with more than 15 years in the business could apply for an Executive Advanced Standing and only need to fill out an application to demonstrate their progressive marketing and leadership experience, submit two letters of reference and then pass the CMA’s Compliance for Marketers course. 

But that left some gaps. What if you have eight years of experience under your belt? What if you graduated from a post-secondary marketing program? 

To meet these needs, the CMA has launched two new accelerated pathways. The Education Path is for undergraduate students of marketing at a college or university, or business students, with a marketing specialization. Upon graduating and working for one year, they can now have a streamlined way to earn their CM designation. The Experience Path is for people with at least eight years working across a spectrum of marketing functions and with career progression. 

So far the CMA has enlisted 10 colleges and universities for the Education Path. For the Experience Path, mid-career marketers who qualify will be required to only take Summit, a capstone course in which participants are given a real-world business problem to solve under the guidance of a CM mentor. 

So what are the benefits of the CM designation? “If you are a Chartered Marketer,” says Simpson, “you have a broad range of marketing and business skills within your mandate, and a proven ability to develop integrated marketing campaigns while delivering on the four P’s of marketing in ways that build brands and business.” (Namely: product, price, place and promotion.)

Then there is the value of belonging to a growing community of fellow professionals. For younger and mid-career practitioners, it is an opportunity to grow your professional network, differentiate yourself from the rest of the market and increase the likelihood of promotion. For senior practitioners, it is a way of keeping up with the rapidly changing landscape. For example, last spring, the CMA offered a range of generative AI training sessions designed for marketers at different career stages and is introducing a number of new benefits for CM’s in the coming months.

When we look at the average tenure of a CMO, it is just over four years at a Fortune 500 company and just over three for a top-100 company. The higher up you go, the harder it is to hold on. That means that marketers, regardless of what level they are at, need to continue fine tuning their skills. Now that CMA has broadened its curriculum to make it both more flexible and more robust, Canadian practitioners have more ways to do that.

Supporting and advancing the Canadian marketing profession is a key focus for the CMA. They’re taking another significant step to bolster the marketing community by introducing the CMA’s CM Scholarship Fund. This initiative emerges as a response to the challenges faced by marketing professionals, particularly those impacted by layoffs or grappling with underemployment. The CM Scholarship was designed to alleviate financial constraints and empower marketers in transition and marginalized Canadian marketers to realize their full career potential. 

Head to the CMA’s website to learn more or reach out to the CMA’s Learning Team at charteredmarketer@thecma.ca with any questions or details on how to apply.