A: First of all, Brand Management is awesome. If you’re a curious, driven person who gets bored easily and likes managing all parts of a business, this could be the perfect career path for you. Where else can you build breakthrough advertising and campaigns one day, develop winning product innovations the next and see everything succeed or fail at retail soon after with seemingly endless consumer and sales data to draw conclusions. Jobs in Brand Management are often a mix of Strategy + Creativity + Analytics, so it’s not for everyone. Some people underestimate the amount of time spent in the numbers for instance. But for many, the fast-paced nature and diverse responsibilities of Brand Management roles keep them energized for years. There are some key considerations around Function, Role, Industry and Company Size to keep in mind, so make sure you understand exactly what situation you are walking into because all jobs are not created equal.

A: You may see open roles at a company you admire but feel indecisive about whether to apply for certain roles in Marketing, Sales, Operations or Finance. Roles in these functional areas would obviously be quite different. Here is a handy recap of responsibilities by function. While Marketing is a natural draw for many of our students, don’t discount great roles in other areas:

• Marketing → Drives Consumer Demand. Marketers develop Brand strategy (segmentation, targeting, positioning) & activation (advertising, media & promotions) to influence consumer behavior. They also provide analytics & insights on market trends & competitive positioning. And they work with Sales to refine messaging and promotional strategies at retail.

• Sales → Converts Demand into Revenue. Theysecure distribution & manage retailer relationships, as well as negotiate pricing, trade promotions & retail execution. Sales professionals also work w/ Operations to ensure product availability

• Operations → Ensures Product Availability & Efficiency. Operations specialists manage supply chain, production, logistics & inventory. They collaborate w/ Sales to meet demand & avoid stock issues. And they work with Finance to optimize costs & maintain efficiency.

• Finance → Drives Profitability & Investment. Finance professionals oversee budgets, pricing, trade spend & financial planning. They, in turn, work with Marketing to determine ROI on campaigns & promotions to feed investment & brand growth.

A: Job descriptions are extremely confusing because many titles are used interchangeably and often mean something entirely different at different companies. It’s important to read the entire description and ask questions to make sure you understand the true scope of each role. At the risk of over-generalizing, below are 10 common Marketing job roles and associated responsibilities. While larger organizations may have several of these roles, many smaller companies ask the same person to wear multiple hats!

• Brand Manager: These roles often include a mix of Strategy + Analytics + Creative and true ownership of the business. Brand Manager roles in CPG are often positioned as General Manager roles because they include accountability for the entire business performance, even if different subject-matter experts are responsible for certain pieces. Be aware that in some industries and at some companies, the Brand Manager role is more acutely focused on creative development, media and brand equity, while a separate Product Management team leads portfolio management and day-to-day performance. This is not good or bad but it is certainly different. Many companies also carve out roles within a Brand Management organization, such that one team may focus entirely on Product, while another leads Activation (e.g. P&L, retailer strategy) and a third owns Brand Equity.

• Marketing Manager: Sometimes, this means the same thing as Brand Manager! More often though, a Marketing Manager has a more focused job scope that centers around creative, media and brand equity, as described in the alternate Brand Manager role above. For individuals who are most passionate about creative and media, this might be the perfect scope. In CPG companies, the Marketing Manager role is less common.

• Product Manager: This job title is very common in Tech, where specialization is required to develop complete new offerings. However, many businesses have Product Manager roles, focused on portfolio management and innovation. If you are most passionate about strategy and innovation (and less so creative), these roles may be the perfect fit.

• Content Marketing: Given the proliferation of content production to fuel the beast of social media and other digital channels, teams often have specialists focused on building content calendars and go-to-market media plans.

• Media Manager: Bigger companies that work with media agencies often have an individual or team focused on liaising with agencies or, at smaller companies, leading all the media planning themselves!

• Communications Manager: Internal PR & Communications teams often lead corporate messaging or partnerships with external PR agencies to maximize earned media coverage. They also often lead partnerships with content creators / influencers for the brand.

• Marketing Analyst: If you are more passionate about solving problems with numbers, there are many Marketing Analyst roles that require an in-depth understanding of business performance drivers and forecasting.

• Marketing Research: Understanding consumers is a full-time job on many brands and research teams are tasked with matching the right research methods to different business problems to set a clear path forward. Research teams often lead consumer segmentation projects and sometimes lead ROI analysis and Equity studies with outside agencies.

• Trade/Shopper Marketing: Marketers focused on the retail environment may have a job scope that centers on in-store promotions (Trade) or other marketing activities (Shopper) that drive conversion at the shelf. Increasingly, these teams also manage the brand’s retail media budgets, so synchronization with the brand team is important.

• Consumer Marketing: Promotions that are managed beyond the realm of retailers are often led by a consumer promotions expert. Examples include experiential programs, national couponing or sweepstakes. When teams have a consumer marketing expert, they are often responsible for managing these types of activities across the entire business, rather than focused on one brand.

Stay tuned

A: Many years ago, the best marketers would often ‘earn their stripes’ at big CPG organizations like Procter & Gamble or Unilever before moving on to work in other industries. However, with the rise of marketing roles in diverse industries like Tech, Healthcare, Financial Services, Gaming & Sports, there is really more choice than ever - and no WRONG way to manage your career. Many generalists still start their marketing careers in CPG before spreading their wings in a passion industry like sports. But if you know you want to work in Tech or Gaming, there is no reason to wait. Just understand that general management experience in CPG often leads to future roles in any industry, whereas specializing in a specific industry like Gaming may limit future roles outside of that niche. One other question to ask is whether marketers in your selected industry are a profit center or a cost center - said differently, are you a hub or a spoke? In CPG, the company often revolves around the brand manager, whereas in Tech, the coders may call the shots - and in Financial Services, the risk analysts are at the hub of the wheel.

A: Selecting the right company size means balancing structure and autonomy. There are more start-ups than ever before with the easier distribution through eCommerce, low-cost media through Instagram and even new sources of funding. If you have an opportunity to work at a smaller company, you may not be missing out on as much structured training as you think. Even the largest companies often employ a 70/20/10 model, where 70% of learning is on-the-job, 20% is via mentors and 10% through classroom-style training. Four factors to consider are: 1. Think about how much formal training you want/need - that 10% may be meaningful to achieve a ‘classical training’; 2. Decide whether you want to be a jack-of-all-trades or focus on one discipline at a time. Larger companies offer more opportunity for specialization and job rotations, whereas smaller firms often ask you to wear many hats at once; 3. Do you need fast promotions or is slow-and-steady acceptable? Lean organizations often reward performance with more senior job titles, whereas large organizations sometimes have more structured career paths that take longer to advance within. However, the inverse may be true at a cash-strapped start-up with a Marketing Director who isn’t planning to leave anytime soon, so ask questions!; 4. If you are considering work at a start-up or starting your own, ask yourself whether that same job may be available later or as a side hustle, while earning experience and a more reliable salary elsewhere. It’s often easier to start at a big company via college/MBA recruiting pipelines and move smaller as you advance in your career, while the inverse is less common.

A: Stay tuned

A: Because there are so many permutations of marketing across roles and industries, these jobs are less predictable than Dentistry or Accounting. Many new marketers are surprised to find the job they’re in is different than the job they thought they accepted. Here are a few common myths busted:

• Marketing is mostly creative: Marketing generally has equal parts Strategy + Analytics + Creative. Many Marketers fail because they don’t have the chops to develop a long-term strategy or diagnose the drivers of performance in Excel. These functional skills can often be learned, but be sure to recognize the job scope and expectations so you aren’t blindsided.

• Marketing is really just selling: Sales is about executing a strategy, whereas Marketers build the strategy using the 4 P’s (Product, Place, Price, Promotion). Don’t get us wrong, Sales roles are highly challenging and many Sales leaders bring more experience and wisdom than an entire team of Marketers…but the jobs are very different.

• Marketers don’t become CEOs: Brand jobs in CPG in particular are like mini-CEO roles and thus a proven training ground for future CEO positions. A 2019 Forbes study found CPG at the top among industries for developing marketers who go on to become CEOs.

• Marketing is a lifestyle job vs. Banking or Consulting: You may not be traveling for 4 days of every week like friends in Consulting or in the office at midnight on a Saturday like some investment bankers, but many Marketers are surprised to find intensely busy days and some late nights, esp. in your first 2 years. Prioritizing work/life balance and your mental health is a must, so make sure you get the real story about a company’s culture before you accept the offer.

• Marketing doesn’t pay well: It’s true that published starting salaries for some jobs in Consulting or Finance at top firms are higher than some published salaries in Marketing (check Glassdoor.com for yourself), but with advancement, compensation is often quite competitive over the long run. Make sure you understand the role of base salary, bonus and long-term equity in total compensation and it never hurts to try negotiating.

• Brand jobs are sexy: A great marketer can market anything, especially when they are not the target. Sometimes this means telling your parents that you’re marketing tampons, itch creams or toilet bowl cleaners. And while it may not seem sexy at the time, each role brings rich learning that you may not value until later in your career. And worst case, each role is temporary. Appreciate that you can sometimes learn more on a scrappy brand with no budget than on a mega-brand with 5 Directors looking over your shoulder.

A: This varies widely but one common structure is to split marketing roles between Activation (aka Base Business, Performance or Brand-Building) and Innovation (aka Brand Development or Global). The Activation roles often include responsibility for managing the P&L and day-to-day brand activities like retail management, media deployment and promotional activity. This team translates a long-term or Global strategy for use in the short-term or an individual market. The Innovation team is then responsible for activities over a longer time-horizon like 12-36 months and deploys materials like a 3-Year Plan, Innovation Roadmap and Communications Strategy. Sometimes, roles responsible for Brand Equity (e.g. campaign development, communication strategy) are splintered off from this group and managed separately.

A: Rising through an organization can seem daunting but the expectations are fairly predictable by level. The only watch-out is to recognize that, due to title inflation, what one company calls a Brand Manager may be a Brand Director at another company. Use below as a baseline:

• Specialist: Learn by supporting the team, including data pulls and analysis, collecting info for presentations or collecting input on creative assets.

  • Keys to Success: Build a strong support network - have a positive attitude & open mind - adapt to feedback - Be resourceful w/ limited guidance - Demonstrate analytical & project management acumen.

• Associate: Initial focus on analytics, including share report & budget; eventually more strategy like product launches, media campaigns & business planning. 

  • Keys to Success: Turn data into stories - Get the job done via others - Take action before being asked - Be accountable for your work - Always have a POV

• Manager: More ownership of the brand. Own the P&L, set strategy & deliver financial commitments; Manage core team, x-functional partners, agencies & meet customers.

  • Keys to Success: Take ownership of the business - Influence priorities through the org. - Create a sense of order - Provide clear strategic direction - Get the most out of direct reports.

• Director: Oversee large brand or portfolio & several managers. Optimize strategy, own financial commitments & staffing - seek synergies within portfolio.

  • Keys to Success: Set high standards & inspire - Remove roadblocks for team - Translate vision into strategy - Develop your people - Consistently deliver great results.

A: As with organizational structure, every company has a different approach to rotations & promotions. Sadly, many companies don’t actually have a formal process at all. The guiding principle that many junior marketers hear from senior leaders is that “it’s a marathon, not a sprint”. This is true in that a 6 month delay in promotion is meaningless over the long run if you are continuing to learn and position yourself for long-term success. Business needs often come first and your desired timing may not mesh with the bigger picture. Try to strike a balance between understanding those business needs, while being proactive in articulating what you want in your career and always recognizing that you have options. An example of how your career path timing might look in a well-run organization:

• Associate (3-5 Years; Rotations every 18-24 months): Build your foundation!

  • New marketers build their foundation over the first several years, potentially rotating onto different brands, categories or functions every 18-24 months. After 2-3 such rotations, many ABMs are promoted to the Manager level.

• Manager (4-6 Years; Rotations every 2-3 years): Get Breadth!

  • Here, rotations are less frequent as Managers stay in their role long enough to see the results of their strategies, products or campaigns. Managers often rotate every 2-3 years, attaining a wide breadth of experience. It’s valuable to gain experience developing long-term strategy, building products and campaigns, and perhaps most importantly, owning a P&L and activating brand initiatives to achieve a financial goal for the year. Marketers who push themselves to get experience in Sales or Market Research during this phase are often rewarded with the wisdom it brings later in their careers.

• Director (4-8 Years; Rotations every 3-5 years): Get Depth!

  • Because Brand Directors are often tasked with setting long-term strategy and leading larger teams in bigger categories, it’s important to stay in their roles longer. Directors often begin to build their reputations in a niche area like Innovation or Activation.

• Vice President (6-8 Years; Rotations vary): Select your Track!

  • Vice Presidents begin to select a lane in which to build their career. Career lanes include the CEO (or general manager) track, CMO track (often more equity & advertising focused) or CGO track (focused on strategy and innovation).

A: What makes a Brand Manager’s job so exciting is that truly no day is the same. Expect to be double-booked on the calendar for much of the day, forcing constant balancing of what most deserves your time. Brand Managers joke about fire drills interrupting fire drills and rarely having time to sit quietly and read a presentation.

An average day might look like this: Start the week with Annual Brand Plan prep meetings with leadership, where you must present the latest draft of your plan for feedback. Hold a brief meeting with your creative agency, which is building the social content calendar for Q2 and requires creative feedback. Get lunch with an intern candidate from your university. Attend a forecast meeting after lunch that runs 45 minutes late as the team tries to reconcile the latest financial estimate. Rush to a meeting with the Walgreens sales team, who needs support building a story to gain distribution on a top seller that is missing from their shelf. Finish the day debriefing with your Innovation partners on the concept test scores in your market for next year’s major product innovation…while answering IMs from your manager about the drivers of soft sales at Walmart in the latest month’s Nielsen report.

A: Stay tuned

A: Stay tuned

A: 30 years ago, the answer was often YES. And on top of that, jobs at top companies often went to a few core schools with a talent pool that was not incredibly diverse. That’s just not the case anymore. Undergrad talent is much cheaper. MBA’s still bring massive benefits to Brand organizations and can hit the ground running much more quickly, but the mix of talent in organizations is more balanced today.

A: Stay tuned

A: Stay tuned

A: Every company has its own secret sauce, whether or not it’s documented formally. The characteristics that determine success can vary wildly, depending on the company culture. As an example, a company that values entrepreneurialism may reward brash, win-at-all-costs behavior. Whereas a company that is more focused on the consumer may reward curiosity and analytical thinking. It’s helpful to think about competencies using 3 dimensions:

• Learning Agilities (“Can you Learn?”): Learning agilities reflect whether a person has the capacity to learn and quickly apply knowledge on the job. Four examples that we recommend screening for in job interviews are Mental (are you smart enough?), People (do you have interpersonal skills?), Results (do you get the job done?) and Change (can you deal with discomfort?). These skills are less coachable and thus deal-breakers in whether someone can be successful in fast-paced and demanding roles.

• Behavioral Competencies (“Can you Thrive?”): Behavioral skills are more coachable but employees who exhibit priority traits upon starting a role have a faster path to success. Examples include managing ambiguity, decision quality and persuasion. Because companies value different competencies, the interview process will often key on a few priorities to assess cultural fit, which is why the behavioral interview prep is so important. If you are not sure which qualities a company values, be resourceful in finding out from current employees or online research. Some of the most important behavioral competencies for Brand Managers include resourcefulness, collaboration, communication and accountability. In a job without much hand-holding, leaders need to know you can navigate through ambiguity and achieve results as part of a team. When CPG Camp advises companies, we recommend a set of 17 behavioral competencies that determine whether Marketers thrive in the role.

• Functional Competencies (“Can you Complete the Job?”): The most coachable element of a Brand Manager’s job is what you actually need to perform from Day 1. The problem is that there often isn’t the right level of infrastructure to support new marketers, leading to a ‘sink or swim’ environment. Well-run organizations create Career Ladders to show which functional skills are most important at each level in the organization and what level of proficiency is required to advance. It’s never a perfect science or checklist, but high performers thrive when they understand expectations. Examples of broad functional competencies buckets include Brand Development, Marketing Execution and Financial Acumen, often with 5-10 dimensions within each.

  When CPG Camp recently consulted with a top organization, we built a Functional Skills Framework for Brand Managers that included 7 elements: 1. Market, Consumer & Shopper Understanding; 2. Brand Development; 3. Communications Development; 4. Integrated Activity Planning & Execution; 5. Leading-Edge Digital Strategy; 6. Retail Strategy & Execution; 7. Managing Business Performance. Each element included 3-6 specific skills for a total of 33 Brand Management skills required. We then defined what it meant to have a ‘Foundational’, ‘Skilled’ or ‘Expert’ level of proficiency for each and mapped where employees should be at each career level. This type of mapping can help employees and managers conduct actionable assessments to map development priorities.