Role manager

The mission of the Brand Manager is to ensure consistent, on-time execution of agency work across all disciplines, orchestrate workflow and resources on client initiatives and ensure integrated use of client assets and brand guidelines. Brand Managers oversee the day-to-day client work from conception to completion.

Key Responsibilities
1. Identifies resources needed and works with all agency functions to assign individual responsibilities. 2. Creates and executes project work plans and timelines and revises as appropriate to meet changing needs and requirements. 3. Manages day-to-day operational aspects of a project and scope. 4. Opens jobs/creates change orders in software system. 5. Provides appropriate job specifications. Once upon a time, not so long ago, brand managers sat in ivory towers and commanded ad agencies at their disposal to go forth and conquer the market. Armed with massive buying power, agencies would unleash a communication wave on the consumer. Totally brainwashed by this awesome power, the consumer would meekly submit and faithfully pick up the brand from the store shelves. Average products backed by money power had a better chance of success than good products with limited budgets. Marketing was not about creating good products but about brainwashing the consumer into submission. Not so any more. Social Media is going to democratise the market place with the power shifting from the brand owner to the consumer of the brand. After all, in classical marketing parlance, a brand is what the consumer makes it out to be! Here are some of the significant shifts that I foresee, both within the organisation and in the market place: The walls that separate customer service, sales, marketing and branding will disappear. Once upon a time a customer-service problem was exactly that, the problem of a customer. Today, one dissatisfied customer can group other dissatisfied customers on a social networking site and cause considerable damage to a brands reputation. Imagine the plight of a store manager if all his dissatisfied customers were to show up together. That is a real threat that Social Networking Sites pose to brands. A customer service problem is no longer a case to be dealt with in isolation; it can snowball into a brand reputation issue.

In the era of mass communication, the brand manager decided the brands positioning. In a world powered by Social Media, consumers will decide the brands positioning. Brand managers will need to be attentive to consumer chatter and use that information to ascertain how the consumer is thinking of his brand. He will have the choice of accepting that positioning, or going back and modifying the product, to try to establish another positioning. Sheer money power will not be enough to establish a brands positioning. One of the most used clich by a CMO is We make products that our customers want. Fact of life is that a company actually makes products that it knows how to make and hopes that customers will want it. Social Media will bring consumers closer to the product creation cycle and products will actually be made (either by choice or perforce) which are closer to consumer expectations. The role of brand manager will become more like that of an air traffic controller. He will no longer be a commander. He will be more like a navigator. With his eyes firmly glued to the brand radar he will be closely watching the currents created on account of brand activities (ATL, BTL, Digital marketing, Social Media Marketing) as well customer service issues, PR crises etc, happening across the geographical spread of the brand. And it will be his job to guide the brand carefully through these currents, trying to avoid turbulence and air-pockets but at the same time enhancing the impact of favourable currents. This role will require 247 vigilance and ability to take very sharp calls.