CMO Council and Businessweek to Honor Top Tech Marketers With “CMO of the Year” Awards
Most Innovative and Successful Technology Marketers to be Recognized on December 8 at Computer History Museum in Silicon Valley

PALO ALTO, CA November 22, 2004 -- The CMO Council, the premier affinity group for chief marketing officers and executives in the technology industry, will honor outstanding peer performance at the BusinessWeek CMO of the Year award reception, to be held at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California on December 8.

Based on an online ballot of 1,000 CMO Council members, the 2004 CMO of the Year awards finalists include AMD, Cisco, Dell, EMC, Google, Hewlett-Packard, Mercury Interactive, palmOne, SAP, and Salesforce.com. Among these organizations, three winners will be singled out for their exemplary marketing leadership and industry results within the following categories: 1) Business Value Creation and Growth; 2) Continual Momentum Building, or 3) Transformation and Uplift for their organizations.

“Today’s marketers have to be incredibly disciplined, inventive and process-driven to move the brand needle in the technology industry,” said Donovan Neale-May, CMO Council executive director. “We’re proud to partner with BusinessWeek in identifying and recognizing those individuals and marketing groups who have had a profound impact on the value and performance of their companies.”

The new award will be presented by Geoff Dodge, BusinessWeek publisher, and will recognize CMOs whose market vision, strategy, leadership and creativity are building value, momentum and uplift for their organizations. BusinessWeek, Prophet, C3 Expo, Restaurant O, Russo Winery and ProExhibits and are key sponsors of the event.

“Marketing is absolutely the key to success within the technology industry, and we are pleased to partner with the CMO Council to validate and elevate the CMO’s role in the industry,” said Geoff Dodge, BusinessWeek publisher. ”It is also clear that technology is a vital sector in rejuvenating today’s economy which is illustrated by the fact that 25 percent of the BusinessWeek Global Brand 100 organizations are technology vendors.”

In addition to hosting the awards program on December 8, the CMO Council and BusinessWeek will also showcase the 2004 CMO of the Year winners in a full-page ad in the December 20 issue of BusinessWeek hitting newsstands on Friday, December 10.

The winning CMOs will represent enterprises that have seen rapid market intrusion or meteoric growth, brands that have achieved sustained market leadership, or companies that have accomplished significant transformations and redefinitions of their market profiles and positions within the eyes of their peers.

Nominations, Balloting and Final Contenders
Divided into three categories, the Business Value Creation and Growth designation asks CMO Council members to choose the organization that demonstrated significant business performance and effectiveness in growing its global profile, presence and position as a category contender or market leader. Companies nominated in this field included Accenture, Google, LG, Network Appliance, SalesForce.com, Symantec, eBay, Logitech, Mercury Interactive, RIM (Blackberry), Samsung, and Yahoo! Google, Mercury Interactive, and Salesforce.com emerged as the top three finalists within this class.

Continual Momentum Building represents organizations that were successful in relentlessly and systematically improving their entrenched or dominant market positions, continuing to evidence world-class operational execution, and producing strong shareholder value and return on investment. Nominees included Adobe, Cisco, Dell, IBM, Intel, Nokia, PeopleSoft, Sony, Veritas, Microsoft, Oracle, SAP, and Sun Microsystems. Those named as the top three finalists are Cisco, Dell, and SAP.

Transformation and Uplift recognizes organizations most adept at redefining, repositioning and reshaping their brands; creating new market and business momentum; and/or rejuvenating or rebuilding their market or category positions. Nominees included Acer Group, AMD, Apple, Bearing Point, EMC, Hewlett Packard, Juniper Networks, Motorola, National Semiconductor, Sony-Ericsson, palmOne, and Xerox. In a tight race, the top finalists are AMD, EMC, Hewlett-Packard, and palmOne.

Tickets for the CMO of the Year Award party are $50.00 per person. A portion of the profits will be donated to the Freeplay Foundation to enable a vital information conduit to the most vulnerable populations via self-powered radios. To register for the event, go to www.cmocouncil.org/events For more information about the event, contact Robin Lutchansky, CMO Council Program Director, at 408-369-8280 or at robin@globalfluency.com.

CMO Scorecard ©
In addition to producing the awards program, the CMO Council has tapped perspectives from its members and industry advisors to develop a set of criteria and peer-level review of on-the-job performance for today’s CMO. The resulting CMO Council Scorecard Template© is a tool used for self-assessment or appraising direct reports or superiors. Evaluation criteria specify the contributions, competencies and knowledge essential to gauging a CMO’s credibility, progress, and influence inside and outside of the organization. The CMO Scorecard is available for members on the CMO Council website.

About the CMO Council
The CMO Council is a private, non-profit organization dedicated to high-level knowledge exchange, thought leadership and personal relationship building among senior marketing and brand decision-makers in the global technology industry. Based in Silicon Valley, the Council works to further the stature, credibility, influence, and understanding of the strategic marketing function among business executives, opinion leaders and critical stakeholders in the technology sector. Nearly 1,000 technology companies are currently represented on the CMO Council, accounting for well over $500 billion in aggregated annual revenues. These include top decision-makers controlling more than $40 billion in global marketing expenditures for many of the world's foremost computer systems, software, networking, communications, consumer electronics, component, distribution, and consulting brands. www.cmocouncil.org

About Business Week
The world’s most widely read business magazine, BusinessWeek is a vital resource for nearly 5.6 million readers worldwide who require insightful coverage and commentary to stay ahead of their competition. www.businessweek.com

About Sales and Marketing Strategies & News
Sales and Marketing Strategies & News delivers information to decision-makers who control sales, marketing, automation, e-commerce, incentive, promotion, and advertising functions. The readership consists of executives in corporate management positions as well as in sales, marketing, advertising, sales promotion, travel, training and meetings management. www.salesandmarketing.com