1) What is brand management?
Brand management is a term in Marketing which shows the level of how customers perceive the brand in the market.
Brand management is an important perspective of Marketing along with sales, it creates value and and firm’s marketing plan. And depending on the marketing plan, companies can earn profits and get customers’ devotion in the long run.
According to a released blog by Nielsen in 2015, I believe it is said to be “one of the most valuable assets a company possesses”. It is the level of how customers perceive the brand name and the loyalty level also. Along with sales, it creates a whole Marketing plan.
2) What are the brand manager’s tasks and responsibilities?
– Critical analytics skill
– Group work skill (which is very important for either the company and Marketing department)
– Brand awareness
– Relationship management skill
This is base on my own experience of finding jobs and also base on some tips from employers.
E.g: https://www.robertwalters.com.br/en/career-advice/the-role-of-a-brand-manager.html
https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/382691674/ (Cocacola Stills Brand Manager in Sweden job description)
3) What are the steps in the brand definition process?
About this question, it is the normal Marketing process that I agree on, it is similar to Sales but with another purpose. So I would say:
1. You need to know your audiences, study the market and use reality statistics.
2. Define what is it that your brand is about? What is it deliver?
3. Analyze more of what you have, not only the brand but also the product that you have, utilize what is it that you can bring other than just the “name?
4. Decide how to reply and response to your “people” – stakeholders, customers, etc.
And finally I think it’s important to actually create a concrete plan with HR also because then everyone can know how do they need to response to customers and what do they need to do with the deadline, and it is important to always catch up with your planning schedule.
4) How does the brand manager work in cooperation with the company management, the employees and external consultants? (What are their roles?)
Accordingly, I think partnership is really important when you are a Brand Manager.
In the company environment, because forming a team is always essential and difficult in a way, you have to be the one who knows to cooperate with not only the CEO but all other managers to create a team environment and head to your one value of the company.
For employees, it’s good that you are being an actual leader, manage the activities and at the same time be understanding, like what you do to your customers. And I think it’s really essential to always catch up with the deadlines. The team itself has to be a strong united team.
For external parties, I don’t really understand the roles of them.
5) Analyse the brand management of a chosen company
I chose a Sweden media firm Spotify:
I found a very interesting article on how they choose to brand themselves as the one to bring artists to customers. I think this is one of their main strategies in branding. They support tours for artists and tickets for fans. Because they found out by statistics 80% income of artists are from tours. This is a very smart strategy because they do study what is the best for them in a long run and create a brand out of it.
Furthermore, they have a “creative team” to support ideas and I believe the working environment do support a lot in their Branding plans and add up creativity to it.
SOURCES:
Gregory, S. 2018. 11 Simple Steps for a Successful Brand Building Process. https://freshsparks.com/successful-brand-building-process/. Accessed 28 August 2018.
Sharma, K. 2017. Nine Steps To Strengthen Your Brand-Building Efforts. https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesagencycouncil/2017/12/15/nine-steps-to-strengthen-your-brand-building-efforts/#28da513d1c9c. Accessed 28 August 2018.
PR Maven 2018. 12 Steps to Your Personal Brand, https://prmaven.com/12-step-process/. Accessed 28 August 2018.
Vizard, S. 2018. How Spotify built its in-house creative team. https://www.marketingweek.com/2018/08/17/spotify-in-house-creative-team/. Accessed 28 August 2018.
Byttner, K. J. 2018. Spotify caters to artists by helping them connect with their biggest fans. https://nordic.businessinsider.com/spotify-caters-to-artists-by-helping-them-connect-with-their-biggest-fans–. Accessed 28 August 2018.
Linh 's study blog 