Is it my imagination or are some the top CMOs working for the manufacturers dropping like flies? First it was Francis McMahon who left HP and now we see that Jeff Hazlett has left Kodak. To be precise, while Jeff was CMO at Kodak, Francis was the director of marketing for HP's U. S. Graphic Arts Business. But seeing these changes in the marketing leadership of these two powerhouse manufacturers reminds me of an article I read in Advertising Age a few years ago that said the CMO was the “most difficult job in America.” Specifically it reported the results of a survey showing that the average tenure of a CMO at the top 100 branded firms has consistently declined. "The 23.6 we saw in year one [of the study], we thought was going to be a fluke," explained Spencer Stuart's CMO practice leader Greg Welch. "This year, we were a bit surprised to see it take a dip." CMO tenure has gone from 23.6 months in 2004, to 23.5 months in 2005, to 23.2 months in 2006. Considering that the average tenure of a CEO is 7.9 years, the CIO is 3 years, and even the CFO—what Forbes Magazine has labeled "the worst job in America" because the position bears the brunt of shareholder and Wall Street frustrations—is higher at 30 months, 23.2 months stands out as an especially short period of time. Of course the article makes you wonder why few CMOs don’t make it to their two year anniversary. The article in Ad Age said it was the changing media landscape and poor access to CEOs that are the leading causes of job insecurity. Business Week's marketing editor David Kiley went even further writing in his blog "Brand New Day," "part of the problem with the CMO position is that some companies have created the title out of a sense of fashion. Creating the title all by itself communicates to the world – goes the theory – that you are a company serious about marketing. Talk and titles are cheap, though. Until the CMO job is viewed as a legitimate road to the CEO's office, it will be a “step-child position," and one with a revolving door. However, I think that another reason is because there are all these new options and it’s tough to get a good handle of the viability and effectiveness of tools like: social media marketing, search engine optimization, viral internet videos, email marketing, SMS codes, QR codes and who knows what will be released next week. Why do you think the CMOs are dropping like flies? Howard Fenton is a Senior Consultant at NAPL. Howie advises commercial printers, in-plants, and manufacturers on workflow management, operations, digital services, and customer research.