Jay Lipe likens them to the "plate spinners" who used to appear
on the old "Ed Sullivan Show."
Lipe, CEO of Emerge Marketing (Minneapolis) and author of "The
Marketing Toolkit for Growing Businesses" (Chammerson Press, 2002),
is referring to brand managers, who are considered the most
important staples in the company food chain since they deal with
both top line and bottom line issues -- and every facet of the
business in between. "These guys are shock absorbers."
Considering massive cost cutting the last few years throughout
corporate America, brand managers have had to juggle a lot more
balls than they do even in good times. And as their budgets have
shrunk, the churn among brand managers has been growing. Lipe says
burnout among brand managers is likely to increase in the months
ahead due to economic trends. But that's not necessarily a bad
thing for PR reps.
"Companies now recognize that they can no longer grow through
cost reductions and the focus is going to turn back to the revenue
line," says Lipe, who prior to launching his own brand consultancy
business was a brand manager for General Mills, Novartis and Select
Comfort. "In doing so, brand mangers are going to be challenged to
roll out new products, improve existing products and build new
distribution channels and that will take more bodies."
Still, increasing churn among brand managers can be quite
disruptive to PR, particularly for agencies that may have to
re-pitch their business after a brand manager departs. But there
are ways around the problem.
Job one is to have a solid integrated marketing plan that can
transcend any one or two individual brand managers and help
inoculate PR reps from having to reinvent the wheel.
Lipe, whose clients include Land O' Lakes and The Toro Company,
recommends two strategies designed to weather any sudden changes in
brand managers. The first is to have a written PR plan "because
documents can survive the brand longer than the brand manager," he
says. A written plan "says here's the strategic thinking behind the
plan so that a [new] brand manager can hit the ground running." He
also insists on quarterly account reviews with the brand manager(s)
to help set deadlines and parameters on how to sell the brand more
effectively. That runs the risk, however, that the company may be
setting expectations too high for the client (whether internal or
external). But if PR reps are confident about building brands,
quarterly reviews can help facilitate the process.
The folks at Brand Marketers LLC (San Francisco), who design and
implement marketing campaigns, also believe strongly in strict
documentation to counteract any sudden change in brand
managers.
During a recent sampling program for Thomas Kemper Root Beer,
for example, the soda company's brand manager unceremoniously
departed. Yet documentation allowed his replacement to step in
without missing a beat. "He knew that here's the plan, we're going
to be distributing root beer in Times Square on such and such a
date and here's all the info, and we're going to have a baseball
player participate and here's all the info on him," says Ardie
Cowlah, director of operations at Brand Marketers. "We work in
tandem with the PR manager and the brand manager in creating
documentation by the hour, which is a key way in simplifying the
campaign."
There are two separate threads in dealing with brand managers.
For corporate communication execs, the brand manager is considered
a "client" of the in-house PR department. From the PR agency
perspective, it's important to cultivate relationships with both
the client's PR manager -- who serves as a go-between -- and the
brand manager himself.
Matt Gonring, VP/Global Marketing and Communications of Rockwell
Automation, which markets automation programs for Fortune 1000
companies in the consumer products arena, amplified comments that
increasing pressure among brand managers is altering their
relationships with PR execs. "You can't operate in a vacuum," he
says. "You have to partner with other dimensions in the marketing
mix and establish clear objectives. It's important to cultivate
other brand managers and other areas related to the scope of the
brand."
Adds Margaret Booth, founder of M Booth Associates Inc., a New
York-based PR firm whose clients include American Express, MGM
Mirage Hotels and Yahoo!, "I always like to take advantage when I'm
visiting a specific brand manager to see other brand managers when
I'm at the client. You might be dealing day-to-day with a key brand
manager but that brand manager has a boss and it's really important
to make sure that the entire brand team - all the way up -
understand what your value is, and in order to do that you have to
be in front of them and often."
It's also important for PR execs to have a keen understanding of
the "brand architecture." To wit: What does the brand stand for?
What is its equity? What is the "vision" of the brand? "To do the
job well the PR person has to be part of an integrated team that
may include advertising, promotions, direct mail, online, whatever
the other marketing partners so that if you have a churn of a brand
manager you're all on the same marketing plan," Booth says. "That's
ideally how it should be working...If you have the brand's interest
at heart, first and foremost, that's going to go a long way in your
relationship with the brand manager."
Aside from having safeguards like documentation, PR reps have to
make sure when taking on a new brand manager that they have matched
the brand to overall business goals. "If I had to step into and
figure things out - from a clean sheet of paper --- I'd go to
sales, maintenance and the people who I could learn the most about
the customers and the customer experience," says Andy Opila, a
consultant with Chicago-based PR agency Matha MacDonald LLC, whose
clients include Coors, McDonald's and Sears Roebuck. "If you have
done your homework, PR execs should be able to help in any
transition when the brand manager departs."
Contacts: Margaret Booth, 212.481.7000, [email protected]; Ardie Cowlah,
510. 839.2110, [email protected];
Matt Gonring, 414.382.5575, [email protected];
Jay Lipe, 612.824.4833, [email protected];
Andy Opila, 312.673.7328, [email protected]
Real-time insights on brand delivery
When it comes to brand delivery, the communications professional
may well have the best line-of-sight to help the company and brand
managers succeed.
The key is this: People deliver the brand experience. What's
more, communications can serve as champion for helping employees
understand their roles in delivering on a brand promise - whether
the employees are in operations, supply chain management or
engineering. Everyone - not just marketing or sales - helps build
the brand experience for the customers.
Some thoughts to consider as the communications function
evaluates its role in brand building:
- Because employees must be connected emotionally to the brand,
the level of attention to the brand must actually be greater
internally than externally. This drives up the intensity of the
need for strong formal and informal communications within the
company. - The brand and its promise must tell employees what to do first;
next, it needs to tell customers what to expect. Road shows to
employee locations, training and visible executive involvement are
vital in communicating the brand and expectations for building
it. - The brand, the promise and the way they are communicated within
a company should act as a decision-making template for employees.
They should guide employee behaviors and actions. - Brand building should be time-consuming for the communications
professionals because, when everything is working, they navigate
the organization better than anyone else to create cross-functional
"glue" that breaks down silos with the company. Silos derail
delivery of the brand experience to customers. - Brand building always needs a champion or a group of people who
clearly understand that they are directing an asset of the company.
The communications professional can step up and take on those
challenges by using internal communications to drive the brand
experience, and deliver bottom-line results.
Source: Andy Opila/Matha MacDonald LLC