Question

Topic: Strategy

What Positions Should Fall Under A Brand Manager?

Posted by Anonymous on 3/1/2011 at 10:33 PM ET 250 Points
i am a new brand manager (still on my first month) of a meatshop chain company and i handle its processed meat products(hotdogs,sausage,etc)...im the only one who does everything from marketing research, product development, data analysis and all...of course i can't handle it all.now, who else should help me through all these?
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RESPONSES

  • Posted on 3/1/2011 at 10:43 PM Member
    Where do you need the most help – expertise and/or time? AND, that you'll be able to realize a ROI?
  • Posted by CarolBlaha on 3/2/2011 at 6:47 AM Member
    Why don't you bring on a student/intern? Many need real life projects to graduate. You can pay them by the project-- but define clear expectations of what you expect. For example- have them do a SWOT, define the minimum competitors you want them to research, secret shop and research other products they offer.
  • Posted by michelle.woolfolk on 3/2/2011 at 12:30 PM Accepted
    I have been a brand manager myself in the food processing world. I think that there are several questions that you have to answer first before you go and pull in a resource. What is the marketing priority that you have to tackle first. Every job has the "must do" things that you need to address when you start. Once you identify those, then you can determine whether you need an "employee" or whether you need at outside service with specific expertise to help. The other thing that you need to consider are the longer term goals for marketing in your company and budget. Many tasks may never need a full time employee but instead, again, require short term outside resources & expertise. Also take a look at where your strengths and weaknesses are and look at someone that can compliment you. It may be that you start by hiring someone that is pretty well rounded that can jump into any area and support while you figure out what is required long term.
  • Posted by Peter (henna gaijin) on 3/2/2011 at 4:23 PM Accepted
    The first thing to keep in mind is that pretty much every marketing job out there will have more things that could be done than they will be able to get done.

    The second thing to keep in mind is that you may feel extra overloaded being new to the job/company, and things will get easier for you over time as you figure out the systems and learn more about the markets and products.

    Not saying that you aren't overloaded and don't need extra assistance. perhaps you are. Or perhaps not. But in general, it is good to be conservative, particularly in a slow moving product segment such as what you sound to be in (my response may be different if you were in high tech or some other industry where life product cycles are very short - for example, disk drives have a life span of maybe 6 months before they are replaced by newer models).

    If you do need extra help, I would hold onto the jobs where you gain the product/market expertise, and farm out the ones where you don't. The wording of literature is something you should be involved with, the layout and print of the same doc could be farmed out.
  • Posted by michael on 3/2/2011 at 5:27 PM Member
    Should? Everyone who interfaces with a customer.

    Will? Nobody.

    Ask a lot of questions of your front line people:
    1) What are customers saying
    2) When you've lost a sale, what could have save it?

    That kind of stuff.

    Michael
  • Posted on 3/2/2011 at 8:39 PM Author
    thanks for the responses, everyone...thank you! :)
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