Marketing surrounds us everywhere, and yet there are only few reliable sources for marketers, especially magazines for CMO.
With very rapid changes in the marketing world, one of the most important things for Chief Marketing Officers (CMO) is to stay up to date with the latest developments, researches, know-hows, and trends. And you may ask how to deal with all of it when the internet is overloaded with useless and very often false information, social media are focused on crazy hype things that have no relevance to your business, and most of the marketing events are now canceled or postponed due to the pandemic.
Well, the solution is obvious. When it comes to the marketing world, I prefer to rely on well-known and verified sources – magazines. For many decades the marketers from all over the world contributed their ideas to the magazines and were inspired by these ideas. And today I want to pick the most reliable and useful magazines for CMO.
Harvard Business Review
HBR (Harvard Business Review) is a general management magazine published by Harvard Business Publishing, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Harvard University. It is published six times a year and is headquartered in Brighton, Massachusetts.
HBR covers a wide range of topics that are relevant to various industries, management functions, and geographic locations including leadership, negotiation, strategy, operations, marketing, and finance. Harvard Business Review has published articles by Clayton Christensen, Peter F. Drucker, Michael E. Porter, Rosabeth Moss Kanter, John Hagel III, Thomas H. Davenport, Gary Hamel, C.K. Prahalad, Vijay Govindarajan, Robert S. Kaplan, Rita Gunther McGrath, and others. Several management concepts and business terms were first given prominence in HBR.
This is one of the most important magazines for CMO.
Entrepreneur
Entrepreneur is an American magazine and website that carries news stories about entrepreneurship, small business management, business, and marketing. The magazine was first published in 1977. It is published by Entrepreneur Media Inc., headquartered in Irvine, California.
The magazine publishes 10 issues annually, available through subscription and on newsstands. It is or has been published under license internationally in Mexico, Russia, India, Hungary, the Philippines, South Africa, and others.
I know that many CMOs choose this magazine as their source for inspiration.
Marketing Week
Marketing Week is a business magazine and website focused on the marketing industry in the UK, based in London. The magazine was launched in March 1978. Its co-founders were Graham Sherren, Michael Chamberlain, a former editor of the advertising journal Campaign, and Anthony Nares, an entrepreneur who set up Marketing Week Communications Ltd (MWC) shortly before the launch.
All content is written by the in-house editorial team. Despite its long duration, Marketing Week has had only seven editors. Chamberlain was the first, Stephen Foster (1980–1983) the second, Howard Sharman (1983–1988) the third, Stuart Smith (1988–2008) the fourth, Mark Choueke the fifth (2009–2012), Ruth Mortimer the sixth (2012–2014) and Russell Parsons (2014–). Among other senior staff is Group Managing Director Jane Turner (2016 -) and Ed Tillotson, Managing Director of the Marketing and Creative Portfolio.
All Marketing Week features are written for and about brand marketers.
ADWEEK
Adweek is a weekly American advertising trade publication that was first published in 1979. It covers creativity, client-agency relationships, global advertising, accounts in review, and new campaigns. During this time, it has covered several notable shifts in technology, including cable television, the shift away from commission-based agency fees, and the Internet.
Adweek is the leading source of news and insight serving the brand marketing ecosystem. Adweek’s award-winning coverage reaches an engaged audience of more than 6 million professionals across platforms including print, digital, events, podcasts, newsletters, social media, and mobile apps. As a touchstone of the advertising and marketing community, Adweek is an unparalleled resource for leaders across multiple industries who rely on its content to help them do their job better.
As the second-largest advertising-trade publication, its main competitor is Advertising Age. Adweek also operates various blogs focusing on the advertising and mass media industry, including its flagship AdFreak blog and the Adweek Blog Network, which was formed from the assets of Mediabistro. Related publications include Adweek Magazine’s Technology Marketing, Adweek’s Marketing Week, and some other magazines for CMO.
Brandingmag
Brandingmag is the original branding magazine based in the UK, an independent journal narrating the discussion around branding with thought leadership from across the globe. Its dedicated team of writers strives to keep readers informed and intrigued with unique work from brands across the globe, concentrating on fresh brand and marketing strategies, executions, identities, development, and overall evolution.
They are supported by a beloved group of renowned experts who collaborate and celebrate creativity by bringing their international expertise and experiences to the magazines’ pages. Together, they propel a vision in which quality content is the value exchange.
Fast Company
Fast Company is the world’s leading business media brand, with an editorial focus on innovation in technology, leadership, world-changing ideas, creativity, and design. Written for and about the most progressive business leaders, Fast Company inspires readers to think expansively, lead with purpose, embrace change, and shape the future of business.
Launched in November 1995 by Alan Webber and Bill Taylor, two former Harvard Business Review editors, Fast Company magazine was founded on a single premise: A global revolution was changing business, and business was changing the world. Discarding the old rules of business, Fast Company set out to chronicle how changing companies create and compete, to highlight new business practices, and to showcase the teams and individuals who are inventing the future and reinventing business.
Fast Company currently operates a number of franchises such as “Most Innovative Companies”, “World Changing Ideas”, “Innovation By Design”, and “Most Creative People”. For their Most Innovative Companies feature, Fast Company assesses thousands of businesses to create a list of 50 companies it considers the most innovative. The Most Creative People in Business is a list of 100 people from different industries.
AdAge
AdAge (known as Advertising Age until 2017) is a global media brand that publishes news, analysis, and data on marketing and media. Its namesake magazine was started as a broadsheet newspaper in Chicago in 1930. Today, its content appears in multiple formats, including its website, daily email newsletters, social channels, events, and a bi-monthly print magazine.
Ad Age is based in New York City. Its parent company, the Detroit-based Crain Communications, is a privately held publishing company with more than 30 magazines, including Autoweek, Crain’s New York Business, Crain’s Chicago Business, Crain’s Detroit Business, and Automotive News.
AdAge is a daily must-read for an influential audience of decision-makers and disruptors across the marketing and media landscape
Forbes
Forbes’ strength lies in consistently growing our audiences and cultivating deep relationships with key segments, including CEOs, CMOs, CFOs, and CIOs, as well as entrepreneurs and leaders through our industry-defining Under 30 and ForbesWomen platforms.
With a presence on every platform, Forbes is the largest global business media brand in the world with incomparable scale and the unique ability to convene, curate, and cover the most influential leaders and entrepreneurs who are driving change, transforming business, and making a significant impact on the world.
Forbes’ international network of editors, journalists, and contributors fuels the creation of content distributed through Forbes.com, Forbes Magazine, research and insights reports, signature live events, and much more. Its trusted journalism includes franchises such as Billionaires, 30 Under 30, Forbes 400, and Self-Made Women and its highly respected investment newsletters. As a result, Forbes trusted journalism today reaches more than 120 million people worldwide.
In November 2019, Forbes launched its streaming platform Forbes8, an on-demand video network debuting a slate of original content aimed at entrepreneurs. The network currently features thousands of videos and according to Forbes is, “a Netflix for entrepreneurs.” In 2020, the network announced the release of several documentary series including Forbes Rap Mentors, Driven Against the Odds, Indie Nation, and Titans on the Rocks.
Chief Content Officer
CCO (Chief Content Officer) is created for chief content officers and other marketing leaders who believe content is a strategic business asset. It showcases how content leaders find success, examining the strategies, teams, processes, and technologies they use. Each issue contains expertise, advice, and opinion to help you excel in managing your content marketing; from creation and distribution to promotion, measurement, and beyond.
The magazine is published by the Content Marketing Institute, which is the leading global content marketing education and training organization, teaching enterprise brands how to attract and retain customers through compelling, multichannel storytelling. CMI’s Content Marketing World event, the largest content marketing-focused event, is held every fall in Cleveland, Ohio, and the ContentTECH Summit event is held every spring in San Diego, California.
CMI publishes Chief Content Officer for executives and provides strategic consulting and content marketing research for some of the best-known brands in the world.
Chief Marketer
Chief Marketer is an information hub connecting a global portfolio of more than a dozen marketing-focused brands including Event Marketer, AdExchanger, AdMonsters, Esports Business, Cynopsis, Multichannel Merchant, PR News, Studio Daily, and more sources and magazines for CMO with an aggregate audience topping 1.1 million readers. The content team scans the marketing universe and connects the dots between all of the marketing disciplines to forecast trends and educate marketers on what’s next and what the implications will be for their careers and their marketing organizations. It is a one-stop “power portal” for marketers that brings together ideas and perspectives from the industry at large.
Chief Marketer breaks down the complexity of the modern marketing landscape and arms the database of more than 164,000 marketers with the tools, insights, data, and perspectives they need to master the “next frontier of marketing.” At chiefmarketer.com, marketers advance their marketing IQ, get perspective on the future of marketing from industry luminaries, and plot a course for their career.
Chief Marketer is owned by Access Intelligence, leading worldwide information, and marketing company. It provides unparalleled business intelligence and integrated marketing solutions in nearly a dozen global market sectors. With a customer-centric culture dedicated to editorial excellence and marketing integrity, Access Intelligence serves business professionals worldwide with a portfolio of products, including events, e-letters, data and digital products, e-learning, magazines, and e-media solutions.
This is definitely one of the top magazines for CMO.
Direct Marketing News
DMN (Direct Marketing News) covers all aspects of digital and data-driven marketing. A resource for marketing and senior sales professionals, the core audience consists mostly of decision-makers and key influencers within their organizations. Readers depend on DMN brand for unbiased, clear, incisive reporting on the topics that matter most to their profession, including innovative use of data, strategy, and technology across all marketing channels.
DMN delivers content via newsletters, eBooks, webcasts, podcasts, and custom projects/publications, as well as at DMNews.com. It hosts many live events (such as our annual 40Under40 Marketing Awards, the DMN Awards, and the DMN Marketing Hall of Femme). And the editors take part in many marketing trade shows throughout the year.
You should include it in your list of the magazines for CMO.
Inc.
Inc. is an American business media property founded in 1979 and based in New York City. It publishes eight print issues annually, as well as daily online articles and videos. Inc. also produces several live and virtual events yearly. Published by Mansueto Ventures, Inc. is best known for its annual rankings of the fastest-growing privately held companies in the United States, called the “Inc. 500” and “Inc. 5000.”
The magazine’s print edition has a total audience of 1.4 million, and Inc.com receives 33 million monthly page views.
In its first issue in April 1979, Inc. published the Inc. 100, a list of the fastest-growing publicly held small companies. In 1983, the list expanded to 500 companies and shifted its focus to privately held companies. Twenty-five years later, Inc. introduced the Inc. 5000, which ranks the country’s 5,000 fastest-growing private companies.
The Inc. 500 is now a special ranking of the top 10% of the Inc. 5000 list.
The Drum
The Drum is a global media platform and the biggest marketing website in Europe. Every day they share up-to-the-minute industry news from around the globe. And every month, they showcase marketing that is changing the world in their magazine. This is one of the best UK magazines for CMO.
The Drum’s story begins in 1980s Glasgow where founders Gordon Young and Nick Creed first met at school. Sharing interests in creativity and commerce, the star-crossed classmates set out to produce a magazine for their peers. They collated content, sold ads, organized printing, and flogged copies in the playground. The magazine was a huge hit and, for a long time, the most profitable project the pair undertook.
With bases in Glasgow, London, New York, and Singapore, the award-winning journalists inform and inspire the magazine’s readers, delivering first-class content across all mediums. A lot is going on at The Drum. In addition to the website and magazine, they provide award shows, live events, complete content marketing solutions, video production, research, peer-to-peer learning networks, and supplier finder services.
MarketingWorld
MarketingWorld is Africa’s leading resource for information on implementing strategies, maximizing campaigns, and gaining a competitive advantage.
This magazine is the voice of the marketing, advertising, and media industry in Africa. It includes special reports emphasizing insight, analysis, context, and expert debate. From product review and launch, media planning and buying, digital marketing, multicultural marketing and agency rankings, and the out of home industry it’s all there to keep the African marketing executives informed and inspired.
The magazine provides valuable insight, intelligent commentary, and strategic analysis. Throughout the year, we publish in-depth features and special reports that add value to readers and advertisers alike. Above and below the line, MarketingWorld explores the strategic challenges and issues facing businesses large and small. Packed monthly with comprehensive reports, events updates, and advice from leading industry specialists, MarketingWorld is Africa’s number one resource for information on implementing strategies, maximizing campaigns, and gaining a competitive advantage.
Find more marketing magazines for CMO in Best Marketing Magazines article and more marketing media stuff in Media Reviews section of the website.
