What prevents the brands to be successful? The answer is
simple - the quality and knowledge of the people who run them. And in many ways
- from a misunderstanding of the brand manager.
In fact, it does not matter what the name of the man
responsible for one of your company's most important assets - the brand. This
may be the owner of the company, and Director of Marketing and Product Manager,
and yet matter-so-called-head. The essence remains the same. This person is
responsible for the profitability and efficiency of your brand. Therefore, it
may be called a brand manager.
Communicating with top managers from various companies, from
time to time you hear some myths about brand management, which are particularly
harmful to the brand and the business.
Myth 1. Brand Manager - generator brilliant ideas
Many people think that the task of the brand manager - to
come up with the name, design, advertising, branding and other elements of the
brand. As an example, it is possible to bring the situation of a psychological
training for control of marketing. When it came to discussing the different types
of personalities, many have suggested that the brand manager - a creative
person with a "head in the heavens" and the theoretical approach to
life.
This error leads to a paradox. Brand manager spends almost
all his time to the design of different products, advertising and so on. E., As
these products are poorly sold, and he does not have time for such important
tasks as understanding consumer preferences, coordination of complex
advertising projects, coordinating the development of new product / brand.
In fact, the generation of ideas - not the most important
task. Ideas can create a special agency, whose services are cheaper since your
brand manager. Much more important - statement of the problem for these ideas.
Myth 2. Brand-managers - the creator of advertising
Some companies really believe that brand - it is an
advertisement. The error was that the advertising of their brands respond
poorly value to consumers of specific products. They spent huge amounts of
money that are not paying off. There are many examples today. About 80% of
advertising, which is available on the street, in the subway, on television,
does not sell goods.
And in order to sell advertising, you need to understand
that advertising - part of the brand, but not the most important thing in it.
Before making effective advertising, you need to spend a lot of research to
determine the brand strategy, brand positioning and its other values. It is
also necessary to accurately calculate the future effectiveness of advertising
and business plan of the entire brand.
Accordingly, advertising itself is part of the brand
strategy. To create it, there are advertising agencies, the cost of services is
less than the cost of your time brand manager. The task of the brand manager -
make the brand successful and profitable.
Myth 3. Brand-managers - any manager who has worked with
well-known brands
Such situations are many, he comes to interview the man and
says, in a cool subdivision multinational company he worked for, and for any
well-known brands in the company, he was responsible. And that he's responsible
for the budget, and for the promotion, and long-term strategy, and so on. D.
And he clearly knows terms like brand essence, brand image, above-the-line.
Not to be mistaken in a person, find out more about projects
that have been carried them on their own. Are there any real results of these
projects? Whether as a result of increased efficiency of the brand, whether
sales have increased? Does this person own brand launched?
If a brand manager is fluent profit and can accurately
calculate the profitability of the brand, then maybe he really professional.
Here are just some of the extremes in the wrong
understanding of the challenges the brand manager. Although the actual error is
much greater.
Who is really - this mythical brand manager?
As it turned out personal interviews and surveys, the
majority of marketing professionals in the US and Europe, highlighted 4 major
qualities, which must have a good brand manager.
Project management
By this is meant the ability to organize all the specialist
phase of the project - from the selection of ideas and ending with the
assessment of the implementation of the project. As well as the ability to
manage project resources - time, people, external partners, etc. According to
many professionals, this quality is one of the main, because the whole brand
management process consists of the projects -.. Such as the study of behavior
and consumer attitudes, determination positioning elements of the brand launch,
support and upgrades at different stages of the life cycle and so on. d.
communicative
It means the professional's ability to fully, clearly and
accurately convey the idea to the audience. Whether it directly to consumers,
advertising agencies and business owners.
It is also very important because in general the essence of
the profession - in the right sense, and persuading people to use your idea,
product, business plan ...
analyticity
The essence of the skill and ability to brand manager to analyze
the huge flow of different information and make the right conclusions.
Typically, high-quality brand management is necessary to process an enormous,
truly enormous amount of information. And, despite the presence of various
assistants and analysts, most of the conclusions of this information have to do
brand manager.
Creativity (creative
thinking)
Professionals agree that a brand manager shall not engage in
the creative development of the brand (creating names, slogans, campaigns,
scenarios ...) yourself. It is harmful for the brand, as it takes too much time
and effort, which is not enough for more important things (to coordinate
projects, monitoring the effectiveness of sales ...). Directly creative
development should be delegated to special agencies.
But creativity, ie creativity, brand manager required for
the adoption of non-standard solutions for general brand strategy, as well as
the final decisions on the development of advertising and creative agencies.
After all, non-standard - that can identify you on the market of thousands of
similar offerings.
In addition, the brand manager must know the theory of
branding. And to understand at least the basics of subjects such as:
consumer behavior;
theory of marketing
research;
segmentation and
positioning;
values and brand
attributes;
communication and
marketing;
pricing, business
planning and budgeting;
financial planning
and valuation of the brand;
basics of sales and
distribution;
basics of
merchandising and trade marketing, and more - plus practice.
brand management - the science is not an exact and a good
brand manager must possess the practical skills obtained in specific projects.
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