Question

Topic: Career/Training

Museum Of Brands' Training For Brand Managers

Posted by Anonymous on 6/17/2010 at 9:41 AM ET 250 Points
I am working on a new initiative at Museum of Brands in London concerning innovative training program for newly recruited brand managers from Global FMCG or food and beverages producing companies. The program will be based on Museum's resources and collection and it is supposed to be a part of induction process for new employees of marketing and branding departments. The 2-3 hour sessions will be concentrated on providing knowledge of key dynamics of marketing strategies of the most successful brands that maintained their top performance through decades but also many other aspects of branding. I would like to know what do you think about it? Which content would be the most valuable but also interesting? Would you be interested in sending junior consultants on this program?
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  • Posted on 6/17/2010 at 11:10 AM Accepted
    Very interesting concept ... especially to those of us who "served time" as brand managers in large FMCG companies.

    My initial reaction is that brand management skills are best learned on the job with a mentor, not in a classroom setting (whether virtual or real-world). The important learnings are far more vivid when you've experienced them, analyzed results yourself, and had to live with your decisions through several cycles. (And had to explain what happened to senior management!)

    That said, there might be a market for your approach at smaller companies where there's no mentor, no lore to pass along, and perhaps not even a legacy of marketing thinking.

    I'm not sure if I would send a junior consultant to a program like the one you describe for that reason ... but perhaps I am biased because I was fortunate to have a highly educational stint in brand management at Procter & Gamble.

    Good brand management is a hands-on thing, not something you learn from a book or in a classroom ... and it spans the spectrum from strategy through tactics, implementation and post-audit analysis.

    It will be interesting to see how others come out on this.
  • Posted on 6/17/2010 at 11:51 AM Author
    Thank you very much for your answer. I totally agree that brand management is not a thing you can be taught by a teacher in a lecture form. That is why the course will be designed not in academic way. It will be more like creative task with discussion and exchage of ideas, then a bit deeper insight from a facilitator referring to the theory and live examples that are on museums display with regards to diffirent issues of branding, and then something like breakfast or other form of informal activity aimed at exchanging views and ideas with current practitioners. This session is more like introduction allowing new recruits who just graduated to feel the taste of business environment, to learn from the best practices, to see some important changes in strategies, advertising, communication and understand the underlying drivers of those. Also it will allow them to make connections and networks both between the "students" and real business people outside the company they are working with. Museum is really very unique and has ability to show some common knowledge in a new, creative light. theories actually are brought to life through emotional connections which participants will feel due to the examples they know and love from their past. this will help them to feel being customer again, so better understand his needs. young professional quite often are not able to perceive their project from customers point of view..
  • Posted on 6/17/2010 at 8:52 PM Moderator
    Does the museum have a website we can visit? Is there a remote program, or is this just for folks in the UK?
  • Posted on 6/18/2010 at 5:17 AM Author
    web-site is https://www.museumofbrands.com/index.html. Unfortunatelly, there is no information about the training I am talking about just because it is really on its initial stage of developing. So far, it seems like there will be several different modules and companies can choose the one which would be most appropriate for them and meet their requirements at the moment. But at the same time several times a year there will be one big workshop combining aspects of all of these modules and this will be amed for overseas delegations. Those workshops will also include visits to some leading brand consultancies and agencies with a world-wide reputation (like Saatchi&Saatchi, Wolff Olins and so on).
  • Posted by Jay Hamilton-Roth on 6/18/2010 at 8:38 AM Accepted
    What would make this notion better by attending it in-person? Why couldn't you produce a series of videos for these lectures and sell them? This would reduce up-front cost, and if done well, the videos would prove the need for attending the lectures in-person (and for on-site visits of mentioned companies).
  • Posted on 6/18/2010 at 8:57 AM Author
    Thank you Jay for the idea. I should give it proper thinking. But the thing is that the core of the program is a lecture of course but the greatest advantage is that it takes place in the museum. Museum has a potential to become a very trendy place not only for regular visitors but for business professionals as well (the current rate is 26000 professional a year visit museum). It is difficult to get maximum from just observing by yourself though.

    So, what I want to do is to create a very distinctive, creative, interesting and fun course in collaboration with experts in marketing and branding as well as top current practitioners ( I have connections in business world and people have already agreed to participate in it) to share knowledge with people new in this business in a relatively informal way and atmosphere.

    Each session will get its own direction thanks to different people attending it, various topics and issues, so part of the content will be formed "live".

    But it could be useful to put some promotion on a web-site in a form of video as well.
  • Posted on 6/22/2010 at 5:30 AM Author
    Dear all, thank you very much for your input! your comments were very helpful and I came out with some shape and structure of the course.

    Just wondered maybe you could share some ideas concerning what would be the best ways to promote this training program?
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