Overview
Brand management is difficult to define because the actual job description varies widely across the vast universe of consumer products companies. Many CPG companies have at least one thing in common, though: They're part of huge conglomerates that produce many name-brand products. Size gives them economies of scale, and a diversity of products gives them protection against down cycles. Which is not to say that small mom-and-pop, mail-order pickle-and-jam companies don't crop up every now and then and make a serious go of it. They do. They aren't where the majority of the jobs are, however-at least, not until Unilever or Nestlé takes them over.
The basic analogy for brand management is that brands are treated like businesses within the company, and brand managers are essentially small business owners. The job involves:
. Monitoring the competitive landscape of the category in which your brand resides.
. Developing strategies to exploit market opportunities.
. Executing those strategies with the help of a cross-functional team.
. Delivering the sales volume, market share, and profit projections for the business.
Brand managers craft elegant business plans and submit them to senior management. Then, when the price of the key ingredient in their product goes through the roof because of locust plagues, they rewrite the business plan from scratch with many more contingencies. They focus on the minutiae of a daily sales-volume report, and they dream big dreams when it's time to update the vision for the brand. They approach upper-level management for capital to fund a new product launch or a line extension in much the same way that small business owners go to venture capitalists or banks to fund expansion.