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ON THE JOB - KEY RESPONSIBILITIES AND DUTIES

The Vault.com Career Guide to Marketing and Brand Management

The Vault.com – The Insider Career Network

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Marketing and brand managers set the strategic direction of their brand and work with many departments to make sure that the strategy is executed.

  • Product development: Brand managers work extensively with research and development (R&D) to develop new products - the beloved babies of the brand. Managers must sift through extensive marketing data. Brand managers work with R&D and market research departments to determine what functional benefits a product offers. As a marketing or brand manager, you must always have a detailed knowledge of your products' ingredients, what your product is currently capable of performing, and what future developments can make your product even more desirable to your target consumer.

Marketers interpret data about every aspect of a prospective product - its color, texture, smell, packaging - in order to make the product as appealing to consumers as possible. During product launches, brand managers meet often with R&D scientists to ensure the scientists are moving in the right direction. (Even at high-tech firms, product development is sometimes led by marketers. Usually known as product managers, these marketers find out what the customers want, and then give specifications to engineers on what to make.)

  • The extension: More common than the new product is the brand extension, which builds on pre-existing products: a new flavor of granola bar; a smaller-sized bottle of ketchup. Brand extensions serve two main functions. They can expand market share into a new market (Frosted Cheerios goes after those who want sweet cereal), and they can help invigorate a sluggish brand. The promise of something new splashed across packages and TV screens opens marketing avenues for the original brand. Then there are product changes. These can be small additions, can serve to revitalize a brand (purple horseshoes in your Lucky Charms), but can also involve a complete overhaul of a product. The latter change is a risky one: Even mountains of market research can't prevent egregious misinterpretations of brand identity. While consumers may have preferred New Coke in a blind taste test, they shunned it when it arrived on the scene in 1985 - and Coke was forced into an embarrassing withdrawal of the newfangled drink just a year before its 100th anniversary.

 

  • Strategy development: Once you understand how your product works and to whom it appeals, you (and your brand management team) must develop a communications strategy that conveys the benefits to appropriate consumers. This requires working extensively with market research to understand your consumer needs and how your product can deliver on them. Once you have created the strategy, you will need to work with your ad agency and PR firm to help communicate this plan.

 

  • Package design: It is crucial that the packaging on your product reflects the product strategy you have developed. The packaging must be simple to read, but also stand out amongst the competition on the shelf. What color should the packaging be? Should it be bilingual? Will the package withstand wear and tear? Is the size and location of the handle convenient? Not only is package design concerned with function, but aesthetics can be ultra-important as well, and can be a strong part of a brand's identity (Coke's contour bottle and the Hershey's aluminum wrapper with inserted paper strip are classic examples of packages that have become synonymous with the product). A particularly appealing package design can often drive product sales. The process of package design is identical to that followed during product launches: research and more research, meetings with R&D scientists, and test trials.
     
  • Market research: As a marketing manager, you must understand what consumer studies and tracking devices can be used to glean the most information about your product. Whether you conduct focus groups to test the latest product concept, track trial and satisfaction rates for your latest launch, measure market share in a certain market, or assess competitive activity, understanding and executing market research will be a huge part of your job.
     
  • Sales Force management: Because you know your product's functional and emotional attributes better than anyone else does, it makes sense that you should be the one to educate the salesforce. Attending meetings to explain what your sales goals are, and helping to design promotions that will motivate your salesforce to hit the pavement are also part of the job.
     
  • Business forecasts: Brand managers determine how much of a product you will sell over a certain time period. By doing extensive research on the state of the market, the intensity of competition and how seasonality affects product sales, you will be able to effectively predict market share and profitability.
     
  • Financial analysis: Chances are that as a brand manager, you will be given profit and loss responsibility. You will have to create a budget with your team and get it approved by senior management. From this budget, you will determine just how extensive your communications campaign and product development pipeline can be.
     
  • Promotions: So, you want to encourage kids to eat twice as much Lucky Charms? Or, you want to get more people to buy bottles of Sprite, not cans. Promotions may be the best way to accomplish your goal. For example, you may want to have a coupon made or have a direct mail piece sent to individual consumers' homes. As a brand or marketing manager, you will work with your PR agency and your promotions department to develop a strategy and execute such an event.
     
  • Advertising: Whether it's print, TV, radio, Internet, or outdoor advertising, the marketers work with advertisers to create a strategy, execute a commercial, and put it on the air. Advertising may be done in-house or through an outside agency.
     
  • Media: You have an advertising strategy and $15 million to spend on it. What media vehicles do you use and what are your communication goals? You'll work with the internal media department as well as the media planning and buying departments at the ad agency to make sure that you develop a media plan that reaches exactly who you want to reach.
     
  • Pricing: If we decide to take a 5 percent price cut on Lysol disinfectant spray to celebrate the spring cleaning season, how will that affect our overall sales and profitability? You have a crucial role in determining the price sensitivity of your consumer target and what price point reinforces your brand's positioning in relation to the competition.
     
  • Manufacturing: How many boxes of Pampers can you get out the door in a month? How many cases need to be shipped to what parts of the country? If you wanted to switch to a new plastic bottle, how long would that take manufacturing to implement? As a brand manager, you will handle lots of operational questions like these.