///CMO Outlook Report Regional Overview

Despite the difficult geopolitical situation, 73% of the marketing leaders state that their company has grown the last 3 years. 

The proportion of those who are optimistic about the future is even higher (78%). Asia Pacific and Europe are less optimistic about the future. 

65% of marketing leaders say it's easy to justify marketing investments. Yet, it seems easier in North and South America, Europe, Africa, and Asia Pacific.

The size of the company has an impact on how easy it is to be able to defend marketing investments: easier in companies with 500-2.499 employees (71%), less easy in smaller companies (61%) and large companies (58%). 

A large proportion of the companies are thinking and investing long-term: 70% of the companies invest at least 60% of the marketing expenditure long-term. 

Smaller companies up to $500 million are less focused on long-term: 62% 

Europe is very focused on long-term brand building. In South America, significantly less is invested in long-term measures, 18% of marketers invest less than 40% of their budget long-term.

26% of marketing decision-makers say they receive actionable insights in real time. The share of real-time insights is highest in Europe (33%) and lowest in Middle East and Africa (19%). Companies who have grown in the last 3 years and are optimistic about the future seem to be more digitalized and gather insights from data in real-time. 

Marketing leaders are most familiar with AI, machine learning closely followed by ChatGPT 

ChatGPT, AR and VR are particularly familiar in North America. AI and machine learning are used most often in Europe, all other technologies are used somewhat less. North America: high usage of ChatGPT (45%), and AR (36%). Asia Pacific: average usage of AI, machine learning and ChatGPT. Lower usage of all other technologies. South America: High usage of AR (42%) and VR (42%).

The top ranked areas for improvement in the next 12 months are media optimization, extracting data signals across channels and generating actionable insights — all 44%. The story is similar in each of the different regions, with varying priorities.

The biggest barriers to realizing full potential of data assets are: Data integration (33%) followed by insufficient tools (30%) and resistance to change (29%). 

Regionally this follows a similar pattern. Difficulty in connecting data together across different sources (data integration) remains the key issue in the Americas and Europe. While in META the main barriers are lack of resources (37%), insufficient tools (35%) and lack of investment budget (35%). In Asia Pacific, it's lack of talent (35%) and data integration (34%). 

42% of the marketing leaders agree that 'sustainability and environmental protection’ is an important part of the brand identity… however, it is also partly expected by consumers.  

The bigger the company, the more marketing leaders think that customers expect companies to address this topic: 24% think that sustainability and environmental protection is important to how they operate as a business, but not to marketing — this view rises to 31% in North America.