brand management careers

THE BRAND LEADER

Climbing the Marketing career ladder When I look back on my 20 years in the consumer packaged goods industry, I remember fondly every promotion I received. We will look at four levels of Marketing which are Assistant Brand Manager, Brand Manager, Marketing Director and VP/CMO. While we present in a linear way, I think learning is rather random. We gain confidence through our success but we learn from our failures. You must boldly look to make an impact and take chances. Put all your passion into your work.

Beloved Brands We make brand leaders smarter

Sometimes we get so fixated on getting ahead that we forget to enjoy where we are now.

At every level you have to adjust to the new role. Brand Managers fail when they keep acting like ABMs who are looking for a to-do list. Directors fail when they keep acting like Brand Managers by micro-managing and making every decision. And, VPs fail when they don’t know what to do. We all say we want to advance, but don’t think of it as just a title: think of it as a challenge to step back.

In every job I’ve ever been in, no matter what level, or what company, I rode the IDIOT CURVE. The idiot curve lasts about 90 days, coincidental to what most companies call probation period. The basic rule of the Idiot Curve is: You get dumber before you get smarter. During the idiot curve, the first thing to go is your instincts. Your brain is only so big, that all the new facts you learn, that when pressed, you reach for one of these new facts instead of using your instincts. The second thing to go is your ability to make decisions. New jobs are always stressful–trying to impress your boss, trying to maintain composure with ambiguity, and trying to deliver when you aren’t sure how to do that yet. Most of us think that stress impacts execution first. But really it impacts decision-making–you might find yourself frozen like a dear in the headlights or you might make choices you think you are supposed to make instead of taking the time to think things through. The third thing to go is your natural strengths. Everyone has natural strengths and natural weaknesses. But in these early days, you spend too much time, covering up the weaknesses, that you don’t allow your strengths to fully show.

Assistant Brand Manager (ABM)

For the most eager first-time marketers that want to change the world, the ABM role is a reality check where you learn before you can run. Too many new grads want to focus on strategy right away, but this is a “doing” role, executing programs, analyzing results and learning how to be a project manager. Through the execution, you want to send signals that you are capable of thinking and leading in the future. In my 20 years of CPG marketing, I must have interviewed 1,000s of potential Assistant Brand Managers. I was lucky to have hired some of the best, who have gone on to have very strong marketing careers.

So what separates the average ABM from the great ABM that gets promoted? The best seem to figure out the right thing to do and then go make it happen. Some ABMs can figure out the right thing to do, but struggle to work the system to make it happen. Other ABMs can certainly work the


The Idiot Curve keeps showing up whether you are a new ABM, Brand Manager, Director or a VP. Learn as much as

you can, and ensure your curve only lasts 90 days.

system, but they forget to think through what is the right thing to do. This is not an easy job and only 50% get promoted to Brand Manager. The ABM role will feel frustrating to you, many times inhibiting your creativity and even your own ideas, but fight through it.

The best new marketers listen to the subject matter experts they are supposed to lead. In year one, you will learn more from those subject matter experts than you will from your manager.

Here are the five success factors for the Assistant Brand Manager:

1. Analytical Story Telling

A great ABM is able to tell stories, where others just see data. There is tons of data all over—share results, tracking, test scores, etc. One of the most critical skill an ABM can work on is developing stories with the data. It is one thing to have the data point, but another to have thought it through and know what it means, and what action you will take on this data. Look for patterns or data breaks, ask questions, start putting together stories and challenge the stories. Use stories backed up by data to sell your recommendations. Never give a data point without a story or action. You risk letting someone else take your data and run with it or tell a story different from yours.

2. Be Pro-Active

A great ABM takes action and moves before being asked. Most of the projects for ABMs are already set by your manager. When you are new, it is comfortable to wait for your projects. But don’t get in the habit of waiting for someone to create your project list. A great ABM starts to push ideas into the system and create their own project list. Some of the best ideas come with a fresh set of eyes and we need a continual influx of new ideas. We also start to see the ABM making good decisions, on their own, and communicating to their boss. Not asking permission but telling what they want to do and look for the head nod. Know what’s in your scope and align with your manager.

3. Make It Happen

A great ABM can get what they want. Instead of just functionally managing the steps of the project, great ABM’s “make it happen”: faster, bigger and better. Faster means you understand what are the important milestones that need to be hit. Manage the bottle necks: the task that have the


longest completion time, that impact the entire project. Sometimes you need to push with an inflexible but motivating fist to get it done. Bigger means you want to do more than is required. You find that magic to make it even have a bigger impact. Creative solutions or motivating others to do more. Better means you have to take the same people and get them to give their best ideas or their best effort or their best work. Guaranteed you will meet many points of resistance. Every project will. Solving these and still getting the most you can, is what separates great ABMs from the rest.

4. Contribute Strategically

A great ABM puts their strategic thoughts forward. You need to be a strategic thinker—asking the right questions to ensure you are focused on the right area, where you can gain a positional power that leads to higher growth and profit for your brand. Ensure you are staying strategic and not just falling in love with some execution not aligned to your brand’s strategy. It’s so easy to be lost in your own “cool” projects. At the ABM level, showing that you can keep things aligned to the strategic is just as important as being strategic. Speak up and represent your strategic thinking. Standing up for your thoughts shows that you are in the game, that you are thinking, and that you believe in your strategic thoughts. Silent ABMs never last.

5. Accountable

A great ABM is accountable in the ownership of their work. Accountability is the stepping stone to ownership. And the ownership of the brand is a sign you can be a Brand Manager. We need to see that before giving you your own brand. Great ABMs motivate but don’t delegate. If you have to step in, then jump in. You cannot let things slip or miss. You have to stay on top of the timelines and lead those on your project teams. You have to be action oriented, and solution focused. You can never allow your team to get stuck. Be the hub of communication to all team members, and to key stakeholders, including upwards to your manager.

Here are the ten reasons that ABMs fail.

1. Can't do the analytical story telling.

2. Struggle to deal with the ambiguity of marketing.

3. Slow at moving projects through.

4. Selfishly think about themselves.

5. Don't work well through others.

6. Miss answers by not being flexible.

7. Fall for tactical programs that are off strategy.

8. Hold back from making contributions to the team strategy.


9. Settle for "OK" rather than pushing for "great".

10. Poor communicators, with manager, senior management or partners.

If you can be better at these five factors than your peers, then you'll get promoted. Conversely, if you are missing any one of these, you might not get there. I hope your boss gives you a quarterly review because I believe ABMs can grow so fast that you need those regular check-ins. If you just get an annual review, you won't go as fast. Ask for feedback, cherish it, and use the next 90 days to build on a strength or eliminate a gap.

Brand Manager

Most new brand managers mistakenly think this role is about managing because they finally get a chance to manage a direct report. However, the bigger part of this role is the transition you need to make as you move from do-er to owner. Yes, you’ll get your first change to manage a direct report, but many times that effort can be a distraction from your chance to continue to learn and grow. Many brand managers are disheartened to find out they are a disaster with their first direct report, but I always remind them that they’ll finally get better by the fifth direct report.

Here are the five success factors for Brand Managers:

1. Ownership

A great Brand Manager takes ownership of the brand. Many BMs struggle with the transition from being the helper to being the owner. As you move into the job, you have to get away the idea of having someone hand you a project list. Not only should you have to make the project list, you should come up with the strategies from which the projects fall out of. A great Brand Manager talks in ideas in a telling sense, rather then an asking sense. It is great to be asking questions as feelers, but realize that most people are going to be looking to you for decisions. They will be recommending you will be deciding. When managing upwards be careful of asking questions—try to stick to solutions. You just gave up your ownership. Your director wants you to tell them what to do, and debate from there.

2. Strategic direction

A great Brand Manager provides a vision & strategies to match up to. Bring a vision to the brand. Push yourself to a well-articulated 5-10 year brand vision great. But a vision can be as simple as a rallying cry for the team. But you have to let everyone know where you want to go. The strategy that matches up to the vision becomes the road map for how to get there. As the brand owner, you become the steward of the vision and strategy. Everything that is off strategy has to be rejected. Communication of strategy is a key skill. Learn to think in terms of strategic pillars, with 3 different areas to help achieve your overall strategy. Having pillars constantly grounds you


strategically, and is an easy way for communicating with the various functions. Each function may only have 1 strategic pillar but seeing how it all fits in is motivating.

3. Managing others

A great Brand Manager spends the effort to make their ABM as good as can be. Most BMs struggle with their first five direct reports. The key is to keep self evaluating and looking for ways to improve with each report. Most BMs struggle to shift from “do-er” to “coach. They think they can do it faster, so they may as well do it. They just become the “super ABM”. Many BMs fail to share the spot light, so it becomes hard to showcase the ABM. But the work of your ABM reflects 100% of how good of a manager you are. ABMs need feedback to get better—both the good and bad. I see to many BMs not giving enough feedback. And so many afraid of “going negative” so the ABM is left in the dark or left thinking they are doing a good job. Great BMs take the time to teach up front, give the ABM some room to try it out and then give hands-on feedback in real time. Use weekly meetings to give both positive feedback and address gaps. Brand Mangers should do QUARTERLY sit down performance reviews with their ABMs, who have the capacity to learn faster than annual reviews allows for.

4. Working the system

A great Brand Manager gets what they want and need. The organization is filled with groups, layers, external agencies, with everyone carrying a different set of goals and motivations. You can see how the organization works and appreciating what are are the motivations of various key stakeholders. You then use that knowledge to begin to work the system.You are starting to see key subject matter experts giving you their best. You understand their personal motivations and find a way to tap into those motivations as a way to ask people for their best. It might be an odd step, but from my experience a really motivating step. Very few people ask for “your best”.


5. Dealing with Pressure

A great Brand Manager can handle pressure: ambiguity, results, relationship time. Ambiguity is one of the hardest pressures. As a leader, patience and composure help you sort through the issues. The consequences of not remaining composed are a scared team and choosing quick decisions with bad results. Another big pressure is when the results don’t come in, it can be frustrating. Reach for your logic as you re-group. Force yourself to course correct, rather then continuing to repeat and repeat and repeat. Challenge team to “this is when we are needed” You will see pressure in relationships. Be pro-active in making the first move to build a relationship. Try to figure out what motivates and what annoys the person. Understand and reach for common ground, which most times is not that far away. At every level there is time pressure. It is similar to the ambiguity. Be organized, disciplined and work the system so it doesn’t get in your way. Be calm, so you continue to make the right decisions. Use time to your advantage.

The ten reasons that a Brand Manager will fail:

1. Struggle to make decisions

2. Not analytical enough

3. Can't get along

4. Not good with ambiguity

5. Too slow and stiff

6. Bad people Manager

7. Poor communicators, with manager, senior management or partners

8. Never follow their Instincts

9. Can't think strategically or write strategically

10. They don't run the brand, they let the brand run them.

At the Brand Manager stage, I hope you love the magic of marketing. Let it breathe and let it come to life. It is easy to lose your passion and try to do what your boss wants or do things to make short term numbers so you can get promoted. Those don not really work long term. My advice is do not just do the job, do it with all your passion. If you don’t love the work you do, then what consumer would ever love your brand.

Marketing Director

This role becomes less marketing and more leading. Your role is to set the consistent standard for your team and then hold everyone to that standard. To be great, you need to motivate the greatness from your team and let your best players to do their absolute best. Sometimes you’ll need to teach,


guide and challenge. Sometimes, you’ll have to put your foot down to stay fundamentally sound and other times you’ll have to follow creative ideas you might not be so sure will win. Let your best people shine, grow and push you. It’s their time.

Here are the five success factors for Marketing Directors:

1. Set a consistently high standard

Hold your team to a consistently high standard of work. Rather than being the leader by example, I would rather see you establish a high standard and hold everyone and yourself to that standard. Shift your style to a more process orientation so you can organize the team to stay focused, hit deadlines, keep things moving and produce consistent output. Consistent quality of brand plans, execution and interactions with everyone. It is about how to balance the freedom you give with the standard you demand. Delegate so you motivate your stars, but never abdicate ownership of how your overall team shows up..

2. Be the consistent voice on the team

A great Marketing Director becomes the consistent voice of reason to any potential influencers, acting on behalf of the brand team. The director becomes the usual point person that the VP, sales team, agency, each turn to offering their thoughts on the brands. Yet the Director has to allow their BM to own the brand. As the team’s voice of reason, a great marketing director must continue to ground all potential influencers in the brand plan with the strategy choices, consistently communicate the brand's direction and back up any tactical choices being made by the team.

3. Consistent people leader

Let your people shine. Newly appointed directors have to stop acting like a “Senior-Senior Brand Manager" and let your team breathe and grow. We know you can write a brand plan, roll out a promotion super fast and make decisions on creative. But can you inspire your team to do the same? It becomes the director's role to manage and cultivate the talent. Most Brand Managers have high ambitions--constantly wanting praise, but equally seeking out advice for how to get better. Be passionate about people's careers--anything less they will see it as merely a duty you are fulfilling. A great Marketing Director should be meeting quarterly with each team member one on one to take them through a quarterly performance review. Waiting for year-end is just not enough.

4. Consistently shows up to the sales team

Marketing Directors become the go to marketing person for the sales team to approach. Great sales people challenge marketers to make sure their account wins. I have seen many sales teams destroy the Marketing Director because they do not listen, and they stubbornly put forward


their plan without sales input. Be the director that consistently reaches out and listens. They will be in shock, and stand behind your business. If sales people feel they've been heard, they are more apt to follow the directors vision and direction. A great Marketing Director should informally meet with all key senior sales leaders on a quarterly basis, to get to know them and listen to their problems. This informal forum allows problems to bubble up and be heard, before they become a problem.

5. Consistently makes the numbers

A great marketing director makes the numbers. They have a knack for finding growth where others can’t. And yet when they don’t, they are the first to own the miss and put forward a recovery plan before being asked. Great Directors have an entrepreneurial spirit of ownership, create goals that: “scare you a little but excite you a lot”. They reach out for help across the organization, making those goals public and keep the results perfectly transparent. And everyone will follow you.

Consistency matters

Hopefully, you noticed the word “consistent” show up in all 5 factors for success. Stay Consistent. That is a trait I would encourage every director to take: show up with consistency in standards for your team, strategy, people management, dealings with sales and owning the numbers. With a bigger group of people that you influence, with a broader array of interactions across the organization and with a bigger business line on the P&L, anything less than consistent will rattle your core team and rattle the system built around you. No one likes an inconsistent or unpredictable leader. They will mock your mood swings in the cafeteria. You will become famous but for the wrong reasons. The sales team will not be able to rely on your word–and to them, that’s everything. Senior Leaders will struggle with you–and will not want to put you on the big important business because it just feels risky. Your agency will be uncertain as to what mood you will be in, when you show up to meetings. With your maturity and experience, now is the time to start to craft a consistent version of what you want to be.


VP Marketing/CMO

At the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) level, success comes from your leadership, vision and getting the most from your people. If you are good at your role, you might not even need to do any marketing, other than challenge and guide your people to do their best work. Your greatness comes from the greatness of your people. Once you figure out the magical leadership equation that better people create better work, you’ll be able to deliver better results. Invest in training your people as a way to motivate your team and keep them engaged. At the end of meetings, use teaching and mentoring moments to share your wisdom.

Quintessentially, rule #1 is you have to make the numbers. As the VP, your main role is to create demand for your brands. You are paid to gain share and drive sales growth to help drive profit for the company? The results come from making the right strategic choices, executing at a level beyond the competitors and motivating your team to do great work. But how you do it, and the balances you place in key areas are choices you need to make. Making the numbers gives you more freedom on how you wish to run things. Without the numbers, the rest might not matter.

Here are the five success factors for the VP Marketing and CMO roles:

1. People come first

Focus on the People and the Results will come: The formula is simple: the smart the people, the better the work and in turn the stronger the results will be. You should have a regular review of the talent with your directors. I would encourage you to ensure there’s a systemic way to get feedback to everyone on the team, preferably on a quarterly basis. Invest in training and development. Marketing Training is not just on the job, but also in the classroom to challenge the thinking of your people and give them added skills to be better in their jobs. Marketing fundamentals matter. The classic fundamentals are falling, whether it is strategic thinking, writing a brand plan, writing a creative brief or judging great advertising. People are NOT getting the same development they did in prior generations. Investing


in training, not only makes them better, but it is also motivating for them to know that you are investing in them.

2. Be the visionary

You are the Mayor of Marketing: Bring a vision to the role. Look at what needs fixing on your team, and create your own vision statements that relevant to your situation. Bring a human side to the role. Get up, walk around and engage with everyone on your team. It will make someone's day. Your role is to motivate and encourage them to do great work. Influence behind the scenes to help clear roadblocks. Know when you need to back them up, whether it’s an internal struggle, selling the work into your boss or with a conflict with an agency. Do they love it? When they put their great work up for approval, and it’s fundamentally sound, approve it. Don’t do the constant spin of pushing for better, because then you look indecisive.

3. Put the spotlight on your people

Let them own it and let them Shine: It has to be about them, not you. Do not be the super-duper Brand Manger. It is not easy to balance giving them to freedom to lead you and yet knowing when to step in and make a decision. By making all the decisions, you bring yourself down a level or two and you take over their job. Instead of telling, you need to start asking. Ask good questions to challenge or push your team into a certain direction without them knowing you’re pushing them is more enlightening than coming up with statements of direction. Challenge your team and recognize the great work. It might be my own thing, but I never said: “thank you” because I never thought they were doing it for me. Instead I said: “you should be proud” because I knew they were doing it for themselves.

4. Be a consistent, authentic, approachable leader

People have to know how to act around you. You have to set up an avenue where they are comfortable enough to approach you, and be able to communicate the good and bad. A scary leader discourages people from sharing bad results, leaving you in the dark. Open dialogue keeps you more knowledgeable. If you push your ideas too far, you could be pushing ideas from a generation too late. Get them to challenge you. Inconsistent behavior by a leader does not “keep them on their toes”. It inhibits creativity and creates tension. Be consistent in how you think, how you act in meetings and how you approve. Leadership assumes “follower-ship”. Creating a good atmosphere on the team will make people want to go the extra mile for you. Knowledge makes you a great leader, and it starts with listening. You will be surprised how honest they will be, how much they will tell you.


5. Run the process and the system

While your people run the brands and the execution, you should run the P&L and essentially run all the marketing processes. You have to run the P&L and make investment choices. Bring an ROI and ROE (Return on Investment and Effort) mind set to those decisions. These choices will be one of the essentials to making the numbers and gaining more freedom in how you do the job. In terms of process, it’s always been my belief that great processes in place—brand planning, advertising, creative briefs—is not restrictive but rather provides the right freedom to your people. Get your people to drive all their creative energy into great work that gets in the marketplace, not trying to figure out what slide looks really cool in the brand plan presentation.

The VP role can be very lonely. I remember when I first took the job as VP, I found it surprisingly a bit lonely. Everyone in marketing tries to be “on” whenever you are around. And you don’t always experience the “real” side of the people on your team. Just be ready for it. The distance from your new peers (the head of sales, HR, operations or finance) is far greater than you’re used to. It might feel daunting at first. Your peers expect you to run marketing and let them run their own functional area. And the specific problems you face, they might not appreciate or even understand the subtleties of the role. Your boss also gives you a lot of rope (good and bad) and there’s usually less coaching than you might be used to. It is important for you to have a good mentor or even an executive coach to give you someone to talk with that understands what you’re going through.

Expected behavior at every level of marketing

• Hit deadlines: Never look out of control or sloppy. Marketers have enough to do, that things will just stockpile on each other. In Marketing, there are no extensions, just missed opportunities.

• Know your business: Don’t get caught off-guard. Make sure you are asking the questions and carrying forward the knowledge.

• Open communication: No surprises. Keep everyone aware of what’s going on. Present upwards with an action plan of what to do with it.

• Listen and decide: It is crucial that we seek to understand and equally important that we give direction or push towards the end path.

• We must get better: When you do not know something, speak in an “asking way”. When you think you know, speak in a “telling way”.

• We control our destiny: We run the brands, they do not run us. Be slightly ahead of the game, not chasing your work to completion. Proactively look for opportunity in the market, and work quickly to take advantage.

• Regular feedback for growth: Always seek out and accept feedback, good or bad, as a lesson for you. Not a personal attack or setback.


Beloved Brands: Who are we? At Beloved Brands, we promise that we will make your brand stronger and your brand leaders smarter. We can help you come up with your brand’s Brand Positioning, Big Idea and Brand Concept. We also can help create Brand Plans that everyone in your organization can follow and helps to focus your Marketing Execution. We provide a new way to look at Brand Management, that uses a provocative approach to align your brand to the sound fundamentals of brand management. We will make your team of Brand Leaders smarter so they can produce exceptional work that drives stronger brand results. We offer brand training on every subject in marketing, related to strategic thinking, analytics, brand planning, positioning, creative briefs, customer marketing and marketing execution.

Beloved Brands Training program At Beloved Brands, we promise to make your team of BRAND LEADERS smarter, so they produce smarter work that drives stronger brand results.

1. How to think strategically: Strategic thinkers see “what if” questions before seeing solutions, mapping out a range of decision trees that intersect and connect by imagining how events will play out.

2. Write smarter Brand Plans: A good Brand Plan provides a road map for everyone in the organization to follow: sales, R&D, agencies, senior leaders, even the Brand Leader who writes the plan.

3. Create winning Brand Positioning Statements: The brand positioning statement sets up the brand’s promise to the consumer, impacting both external communication (advertising, PR or in-store) as well as internally with employees who deliver that promise.

4. Write smarter Creative Briefs: The brief helps focus the strategy so that all agencies can take key elements of the brand plan positioning to and express the brand promise through communication.

5. Be smarter at Brand Analytics: Before you dive into strategy, you have to dive into the brand’s performance metrics and look at every part of the business—category, consumers, competitors, channels and brand.

6. Get better Marketing Execution: Brand Leaders rely on agencies to execute. They need to know to judge the work effectively to ensure they are making the best decisions on how to tell the story of the brand and express the brand’s promise.

7. How to build Media Plans: Workshop for brand leaders to help them make strategic decisions on media. We look at media as an investment, media as a strategy and the various media options—both traditional and on-line.

8. Winning the Purchase Moment: Brand Leaders need to know how to move consumers on the path to purchase, by gaining entry into their consumers mind, help them test and decide and then experience so they buy again and become a brand fan.


Graham Robertson at Beloved Brands

A NEW WAY to look at Brand Management.

Graham is one of the voices of the modern Brand Leader. He started Beloved Brands knowing he could make brands stronger and brand leaders smarter. Beloved Brands will challenge you to think strategically so you can create a Brand Positioning, a Brand Concept and a Big Idea for your brand. Graham will help write Brand Plans that focus everyone who work on the brand and make your team of Brand Leaders smarter so they can produce better work that drives stronger brand results.

Graham spent 20 years in Brand Management leading some of the world’s most beloved brands at Johnson and Johnson, Pfizer, General Mills and Coke, rising up to VP Marketing. Graham played a major role in helping Pfizer win Marketing Magazine’s Marketer of the Year.

His public speaking appearances inspire brand leaders to love what they do. Over 4 million marketers have visited his website,beloved-brands.com with the desire to become smarter. Graham has served as a contributing author to Advertising Age in the US and Marketing Magazine in Canada.

To contact Beloved Brands, email [email protected] or call 416-885-3911. You can also follow us on Twitter @belovedbrands.
