Just Say No to limited CMO jobs

Yesterday I got a call from a recruiter from one of the Top 5 retained executive search firms.  She wanted to tell me about their Chief Marketing Officer search for a top tier management consulting firm.  It's a newly created position, she said, with eight pages describing the role and its scope.   

I asked her to summarize the position.  I heard some very good words:  "executive level," "strategic."  But sure enough, I heard one other phrase that still revealed the myopia of the hiring firm.  When I asked about the main focus of the role, she said "awareness building."  Damn, I thought.  This job is mostly about public relations and communications. 

I admit I spouted a bit about the critical importance of CMO roles that are TRULY strategic, that is, actually integrating the entire range of strategic marketing functions with the business development and sales functions to which they must connect in order for real competitive effectiveness to occur.

I think I even said "I'll be gad glad to review your client's CMO position spec, but I sure hope it's going to be deeper and more integrated with business development (and other internal functions of the firm) than what you've described to me."  I remember thinking,"Tell your client to re-do this job specification, or else they're wasting their money."  I don't think I said it but I may have strongly implied it.   

She hasn't replied.