A process that attempts to gain control over what effect a brand has and what it expresses and how it is perceived by the consumer. Brand management as a specific function of modern management

The top management level of brand management in companies is usually represented by specialized units - councils, committees or working teams for developing brand strategies. They are created mainly in large companies with a high degree of diversification and are responsible for developing strategic proposals and recommendations, taking into account corporate interests and preparation of decisions on key issues of strategic management of the company's brands. Such working groups include leading brand managers, managers of production departments and representatives of central services (R&D, marketing, sales). Middle management services and units are actively involved in coordinating brand strategies.

Brand management

A brand manager is a specialist involved in promoting a certain group of products on the market, united by a brand (trade mark). As a rule, competent positioning of a brand in the market can significantly increase and stabilize profits from the sale of goods, so the position of a brand manager is very promising in terms of career and income.

Places of work In the success of a business, a brand manager is considered one of key figures Therefore, large and medium-sized manufacturing companies and retailers are constantly in need of qualified specialists of this kind. History of the profession The profession of brand manager arose relatively recently - approximately in the middle of the twentieth century.

After the American Great Depression, production increased and competition between manufacturing companies increased sharply.

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Attention

In addition, he determines the directions of all work to implement the brand strategy, carries out management and consulting activities, is responsible for the development of the brand in the market, coordinating internal processes and decisions regarding the brand. In the course of his activities, a brand manager interacts with many functional services.

Important

By participating in the sales planning and management process, he gets closer to the actual commercial situation, which allows him to improve individual elements of the brand strategy. Participation of the brand manager in strategic management the company is associated with production, sales and financial functions.

What is brand management? brand management methods

He is involved in dozens of business processes, in each of which he controls something, asks something, assigns something to someone, receives a report from someone, sends data somewhere, monitors someone. He is an important link in the normal (not some super-efficient, but just normal) functioning of his product group.

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Therefore, after some time it will happen that either the brand manager’s competence will be called into question, or he will have an assistant. In the above diagram, I want to highlight the main tasks that should be in the work plan of a brand manager and to which he should pay close attention amid the daily turnover.

The role of brand management in the strategic management of a company

He knows it better than anyone and he needs to sell it more than anyone, so let him sell it - the position of management, which is the main reason for the gradual reduction of the brand manager’s influence on the organization and management of the development of his product line. As time passes, the company's management asks quite fair questions - why is the brand manager so poorly aware of the situation with competitors, where are the new super-successful products, who is forcing the purchasing department to improve the delivery conditions for this product group, why is the brand manager not thoroughly aware of the situation with customers ... After all, it was precisely to resolve such issues that this position was created.
“And, in general, until you tell him, the brand manager won’t do it...” And the brand manager is already responsible for everything that is at least indirectly related to his product, so he does not have time to do anything fully.

How to choose a brand manager

Dubovik Sergey The position of brand manager (sometimes product manager), a person responsible for the growth and development of a particular brand or product line, can increasingly be found today in large and medium-sized companies. The head of the company should pay attention to the fact that over time, the brand manager begins to manage his brand or product line less and less, and is increasingly involved in the local management of the sales department.

The company's management requires the brand manager to grow and develop the product line (the entire brand line). The brand manager is seen as chief specialist for this product, who has the best understanding of the product, its properties, and differences.

He is better than others aware of the machinations of competitors and strong and weaknesses their products. He finds new markets by relentlessly segmenting and differentiating markets, products and customers.

The content of the concept of “brand” (cherednichenko) – part 13

Rationalization is a reduction in the number of brands, since their many over time may exceed the permissible marketing power of the company. Rebranding is a change of brand, but while maintaining some basic initial data.
This technology is very risky, but in the future it allows you to retain old customers and attract new ones. Orientation is the creation of symbolic value of a product. This means that the characteristics of the product themselves are no longer decisive and the main arguments among buyers - the brand itself has come to the fore. Life cycles goods have become very scarce in today's free and competitive market. And the emergence of cheaper analogue and substitute products threatens the existence of popular products. Hence the need to focus not so much on the characteristics of the product, but on marketing and brand.

Profession brand manager

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Position the brand in such a way as to provide it with advantageous differences and advantages compared to competitors. 5. Develop and implement activities to establish a close connection between the brand and target customers. 6.

Develop and implement brand loyalty programs. 7. Conduct events aimed at increasing brand awareness, both within your company and among buyers and consumers.

8. Develop brand standards and do not allow anyone to violate them. 9. Manage brand equity and increase its value. 10. Provide patent and legal protection brand. 11. Fanatically love your brand. Make sure that the brand manager does only the work for which he was appointed to this position and do not let the rest of the company’s employees push duties and responsibilities onto him just because the brand manager “needs it most.”
Reflecting objective trends in the reorganization of management structures, firms are introducing new positions in top level management, for example, the director of brand equity management, whose task is to formulate the mission and vision of the brand at the corporate level. The responsibilities of such managers include ensuring the strategic direction of the brand and stimulating company employees to implement structural changes And innovative projects By forming a team, members are able to become the driving force behind the development of the brand. In a company focused on the development of brand assets, all intra-company functions, operations and mechanisms are distributed between functional divisions depending on the degree of their participation in branding and are integrated by brand managers at all levels of intra-company management - top, middle and lower.

What specialists are employed in marketing departments? After the company has been registered, a huge staff of personnel is required for its functionality, including a brand manager. Although this question seems somewhat strange, it very often turns out that employees of this department have rather abstract positions of “marketing managers”. This is especially true for small firms, where marketing includes everything related to promotion own products or its advertising. But large companies are forced to clearly distribute responsibilities between employees, and this is how positions such as brand chef or brand manager arise. What are they doing?

Functions of a brand manager

Its main task is to manage the company's main asset, its brand or several corporate brands. He must create a line of brand(s) from scratch in a given local market or develop and promote an existing line in order to obtain the highest possible marginal income.

It should be noted that the position of brand chief does not exist in all, even large, companies. If a company produces products of only one brand, then brand marketing is the task of the entire marketing department. But some companies try to save money in times of crisis, and marketing departments are not created in every company, and when the situation worsens economic conditions In a company, marketers are often the first to get on the list of those they are trying to cut.

Even experts are often mistaken about what a brand manager does; they believe that a brand chef is only tasked with promoting and advertising. But advertising campaigns, creating attractive and recognizable packaging, coming up with an apt slogan - this is only the most noticeable work known to the general public.

But it would be wrong to reduce the list of responsibilities of a brand manager so much. There are other tasks in his field of activity, and the main one on their list is not promoting a particular brand, but making money with their help. In this case, the brand becomes as a separate product and a tool for generating profit for the company, and the brand manager must ensure that his brainchild provides maximum benefits and is a way to obtain maximum marginal income. A brand manager becomes, as it were, the boss of a company within a company and he manages not the production of products, but the trade of one or more brands.

This applies mainly to manufacturing companies. In trading companies, brand managers have to develop an assortment matrix for other brands.

Brand manager: responsibilities in Russian and foreign companies often differ?

Yes, such differences exist. Work with a brand in full is often carried out only in companies Russian entrepreneurs. Foreign companies often limit the work of a brand manager to communication with potential clients, and ideas for developing and promoting a brand, as well as assortment matrix he is given those already developed by other specialists “at the top.” Therefore, probably, such a position could be called a communication brand manager.

Who is applying for the position of brand manager?

Since ideas about the work of this specialist are very vague, if a vacancy is announced for a brand manager, then a variety of specialists apply for his place: these are managers who were previously involved in purchasing or logistics, and advertisers and PR specialists, and marketing analysts. Among the applicants there are also those who have already worked as a brand manager, but they were not involved in brand management at all. Sometimes such applicants are poorly versed in assortment management, have little knowledge of economics and have practical skills in the areas of advertising, making promotional souvenirs and organizing promotional events. Only one in five were practically involved in brand management.

Brand manager: responsibilities

If you list the responsibilities of a brand manager, you will get the following list:

• analysis and monitoring of the current market situation, including analysis of competitors’ activities and tracking prices for similar products;
• participation in the company’s product development, in particular, packaging design, studying the functionality of products;
• V trading company: studying the technological features of sold brands and sales management based on the data obtained;
• increasing the profitability of goods and accelerating trade turnover, analysis will help with this pricing policy competitors, price positioning, analysis and forecast of price dynamics based on an assessment of the economic situation;
• checking product inventories and stimulating demand for individual items and (or) product groups through promotions;
• study and systematization of tastes and preferences potential clients: who, how much, where buys products and why chooses this brand, how competitors work;
• creation and implementation of brand promotion programs (advertising, PR, BTL).

Some may find this list too short or incomplete, and they will certainly be right. After all, in different market conditions When working with a different number of brands, the responsibilities of a brand manager may be broader. When the number of brands reaches 10-12 positions, the assortment can contain tens of thousands of items. Therefore, the responsibilities will take into account the peculiarities of the company’s existence in the market: in one place it is important to improve packaging, and in another it is vital to optimize the assortment to obtain maximum benefits from sales.

However, in all cases, the brand manager must strive for the same goal - to obtain maximum marginal income from the brand. Here, the best evidence of the quality of the work done is not the number of contacts with potential clients or brand recognition by as many people as possible. The real indicator is the profit received as a result of the steps taken. After all, contact with a potential buyer does not always mean a subsequent purchase, and brand recognition does not confirm its popularity among buyers. Therefore, the successful work of a brand manager is a contribution to good earnings companies.

Video: What does a brand manager do: responsibilities and functions

• 1. Brand management of the State University of Management.
• 2. Brand management in the internal company management system.
• 3. Brand management system for small firms and large companies.
• 4. Cross-functional approach to brand management.
• 5. Organizational forms of brand management.
• 6. The role and place of advertising in brand management.

Advertising traditionally plays a vital role in the process of building and developing a brand. And this assessment is fair, because advertising is that heavy weapon that is designed to consolidate ideas and brand positioning in the consumer’s mind, draw attention to the packaging, make people believe in the benefits, strike a blow at competitors, and much more. Advertising reinforces in the consumer’s mind the fruits of the strategic marketing thinking of the brand’s creators. Therefore, the process of brand advertising requires care and thoughtfulness.

Advertising that solves brand building problems must meet a number of criteria.

First of all, advertising must strictly correspond to the developed brand positioning. Correctly formulated positioning acts as the cornerstone of a brand’s advertising concept. For marketers, a positioning statement sums up the entire idea of ​​a product in one phrase, while a slogan advertising campaign also in one phrase formulates positioning for the consumer in a language understandable to him.

Brand image, which many people talk about as the ultimate goal of advertising, actually means the consumer's understanding of the benefits and advantages of the brand. By concentrating advertising efforts on reaching target audience information about the main benefit that the consumer will receive from purchasing a product, the company does much more to build a brand image than, for example, placing the product in the hands of beautiful models or presenting it against the backdrop of pastoral landscapes.

Brand advertising must speak the language of the consumer. Clarity of brand advertising is a significant component of success. Many high-profile advertising campaigns, costing advertisers hundreds of thousands of dollars, did not bring the expected results precisely because they were incomprehensible to the consumer.

To summarize, I would like to emphasize that when building an advertising campaign, strategic thinking and a marketing view should prevail over the creative thinking of creators and direct their talent in the right direction.

• 7. Names in brand management.
• 8. The role of the brand manager in organizing brand management. Requirements for a brand manager. Functional apparatus of a brand manager.
• 9. Corporate culture in brand management.
• 10. Brand management in the system internal communications modern companies: means, methods and forms.
• 11. Integrated brand communications: concept, elements, types.
• 12. Legal aspects of brand management.
• 13. Organizations of the Russian Federation that carry out registration and protection of trademarks.
• 14. Creating a brand on the Internet (components, strategies, stages, principles, “7C” model).

even a first grader. We have all repeatedly observed these processes in the life of large corporations. And this is not surprising: after all, a brand is a public phenomenon; it cannot exist without a mass audience, which creates its image. Is it possible to replace a regular audience with a virtual one? How effective can building a brand online be?

To answer this question, in principle, it is enough just to think for a minute and imagine the modern audience of the Internet, even if only the Russian-speaking part of it. Today, when the endless expanse of the global web has become available to the majority of residents of our country, any kind of advertising activities in this still new and not fully explored territory they can be very, very effective.

• · SEO - promotion and promotion of sites, due to a certain set keywords. Essence: potential consumer enters the words he is interested in into the search engine, and sees the customer’s website in the top ten (and ideally in the top three). It is not suitable for launching a new brand, since no one will request an unfamiliar product.
• · Accommodation contextual advertising- appearance of advertising messages in search engines ah when the user enters a number of specific queries. That is, it was originally built on the same principle as SEO. For the same reason, it is not effective for promoting a new brand. Although it may work if you include in the list of queries some general words that characterize not only new brand, but also existing, similar ones.
• · CMO - advertising on blogs and social networks. Designed for an audience of people who are accustomed to constantly communicating and interacting on social networks (by the way, this audience today exceeds the audience of search engines). Represents the creation thematic groups and communities, posting messages containing hidden advertising or brand information. It is almost ideal for launching a new brand, as it simultaneously informs about it and helps create its positive image.
• · Display advertising-- any types banner advertising on large and visited resources: forums, serious portals, etc. Typically, such an advertising message is brightly and attractively designed, so it involuntarily attracts the eye. Again, in terms of effectiveness for promoting a new brand, it can be compared with television and outdoor advertising at the same time, since it has a wide audience reach and is located in places with large crowds of people.
• 15. Creation and management of a Russian or foreign brand (optional).
• 16. Review of literature on brand management.

Concept, goals and objectives of brand management

Definition 1

A set of marketing techniques and techniques that are used in relation to a brand, product or service to increase its perception among the target audience is called brand management.

Brand management or brand management is the process of managing a brand or trademark, which includes:

• Creation trademark;
• packaging design development;
• advertising and sales promotion activities.

The essence of brand management is to find effective way achieve the desired positioning of the brand and products in the minds of consumers.

Note 1

The goal of brand management is to form long-term, mutually beneficial relationships with consumers.

The main tasks of brand management: developing and building a brand, maintaining and preserving the brand.

The object of brand management is a single product/brand or group of products.

Marketing is one of the most significant components of the integrated brand management process. The basic marketing elements of brand management are:

1. developing a brand idea;
2. designing elements of the brand marketing complex;
3. market and brand research;
4. brand tracking or long-term marketing research(dynamics measurement key indicators brand;
5. control over the production of goods united by one brand;
6. sales management;
7. organizing and conducting advertising campaigns;
8. control of brand profitability;
9. marketing management.

Brand management is entirely focused on market performance, trust and enhancing the perception of a brand or group of brands. Competent brand management can turn any product into a brand. The main thing is to develop an effective business strategy and marketing strategy. Brand management already performs the operational function of promoting a brand on the market.

Brand management in marketing

Brand management in marketing is defined by the concept of branding. This marketing activities to form long-term cooperation between brand and consumer.

Note 2

Branding in marketing is a complex technology that is aimed at positioning a brand favorably against competitors. Brand management is effective if the consumer properties of the product meet the market requirements, thereby making the search for the product easier for the consumer.

In the brand management process, a branding project is created, which consists of the following stages:

• research of the target audience, competitors (advantages and disadvantages), consumption situations;
• search for insights;
• positioning;
• brand platform development;
• brand communications;
• brand design;
• brand identity;
• creating a name (naming).

Brand management begins with its positioning. This is the formation in the consumer’s mind of a clear position of the brand among analogues. Optimal choice position will bring success to the brand. Position is understood as a set of associations that appear in the consumer when mentioning brand attributes. Effective positioning is possible through marketing communications.

Positioning is closely related to justifying prices for a brand. Low price is not a guarantee of high demand, and a high price may turn off potential customers. As a rule, premium class goods have high prices; in this case, an increase in demand can be observed.

The idea of ​​creating a brand may arise when researching other brands in the same segment. Studying competing brands is necessary for successful positioning, eliminating duplication and copying, and possible errors.

When brands already have their own niche and price segment, their own positioning, this means that the brand is adequately perceived by consumers. In this case, a brand architecture should be formed. Essentially, this is a company's brand portfolio. It is a matrix consisting of cells. Specific brands are assigned to these cells. The role of each brand within the portfolio is determined using the BCG matrix (cash cows, stars, strategic brand and leverage brand).

Brand Management Strategies

Definition 2

A brand strategy is a specific plan of action that defines options for positioning a brand, taking into account the future needs and desires of consumers and the strategies of competitors.

Branding strategy is a component marketing strategy company, which in turn occupies a central position in the corporate strategy of the organization.

There are six models for managing the relationship between a brand and a product, or six branding strategies:

• product brand;
• product line brand;
• assortment brand;
• umbrella brand (umbrella brand); original brand strategy;
• supporting brand.

Product brand strategy is giving a specific name to one product and organizing its positioning. Any new product receives a brand name, which becomes its property. A company may have a portfolio of brands. In order to expand the brand, you can update the product itself. To highlight the important improvement of their product, companies assign a serial number to the brand name.

A product line brand strategy involves taking a successful concept by expanding it while maintaining a strong connection to the original product. In other cases, the product line is introduced to the market as one whole with many additional goods, which are connected with the central concept.

As part of the third strategy, brands product range They use one name and, through one advertising message, promote a range of goods belonging to the same field of activity. Such brands unite all their products based on the principle of uniqueness.

An umbrella brand strategy is when several products in different markets operate under the umbrella of one brand. But at the same time, each product has its own advertising, communication channels and its own common name.

The strategy of the original brand is similar to the previous one, but differs in that the products have their own brand name. The common name is not used.

The final sixth strategy extends its approval to a wide variety of products that are grouped within product brands, product line brands, or product brands. The supporting brand acts as the main guarantor.