Industry Perspectives

Brand managers are business leaders responsible for growing top-line revenue and bottom-line profit for one or multiple brands.  Among their many duties, they are tasked with building and maintaining a strong online and traditional media presence that presents an industry-leading image to all your stakeholders and constituents.

Which qualities should you seek as you complete the hiring process for a new brand manager? What separates the good from the great?

Creativity

Proactive creativity ensures that your brand is never defined by anyone outside your organization. Thinking ahead – and thinking on one’s feet – requires ongoing innovation, an essential trait of a good brand manager.

• Trendspotting is good, but trendsetting is better. Being ahead of the creative curve requires dedication, with the end result being a brand that is actively sought out by clients and proudly represented by your own team members.

Technical and Social Media Savvy

A brand manager is the gatekeeper of your reputation, your voice to your consumers and the media, and the architect of your brand image.  In addition to traditional communications, this requires creation and maintenance of high-performance websites and social media accounts, as well as provision of ongoing content and staying abreast of technical trends and developments. When hiring a brand manager, look for:

• Excellent organizational skills: Brand managers must have quick, easy access to the latest technical tools and social media opportunities. Their role involves keeping a close eye on who is talking, writing or blogging about your organization. They should be leveraging tools like Google alerts whenever anyone mentions your company name, products, services or leaders. It’s their responsibility to provide the messaging that those in your industry, as well as the media and general public, understand.
• Technical prowess: The world is adopting more and newer technologies by the second. Your brand manager must constantly spot new trends to incorporate into business strategies. For instance, following blogs that cover your industry, the tech sector and pertinent marketing trends, is invaluable.

Communications Leadership

A brand’s communications plan should parallel its business plan. Ensuring that this happens on an ongoing basis is at the core of your brand manager’s responsibility. This requires a genuine, enthusiastic brand passion, which is infectious and helps everyone on your team to generate enthusiasm about representing their company.

• The most effective brand managers educate everyone – internal and external audiences – about your company and its value statements. They provide the ongoing messages and language that those in your industry, as well as the general public and the media, understand and will leverage.
• Brand managers are communications and marketing gatekeepers. The question they must continually ask is “How does this affect our image?” Creating, maintaining and monitoring communications that will bolster your brand’s reputation, and seeking new ways to get your message distributed, will exponentially increase a brand manager’s value.

The executive recruiters at O’Connell Group offer extensive professional experience and years of expertise in sourcing, hiring and retention in marketing, brand management and related fields. Contact us today to set up a meeting and learn more.