The Brand Is Me

The role of the brand manager is becoming more articulated and internationally oriented. It involves many activities, is based on sophisticated technical and managerial skills, and requires commitment and devotion to one of the most important immaterial assets available to a firm.

The salient traits of the contemporary brand manager have emerged from a research conducted by the authors of this article together with Chiara Solerio and Marta Pizzetti of SDA Bocconi School of Management (Marketing Division) and in collaboration with Bocconi CERMES Research Center.

This qualitative research involved brand managers of 64 national and multinational companies, both B2B and B2C, for a total of 187 people interviewed. Numerous aspects of brand management were investigated, such as realms of responsibility, organizational interfaces, the skills required (today and tomorrow), level of satisfaction with the job held and performance evaluation process.

From the rich data base we have gathered, we can draw several considerations. For instance, in terms of organizational interface, the brand manager acts as link between the inside and the outside of a firm, acting as central node of a sizable relational network involving several corporate functions (from R&D to quality control, cost management, logistics and purchases, human resources and legal) and external actors (communication agencies, advertising companies, sales promotions, market studies etc.).

This organizational centrality is accompanied by varying levels of responsibility, which make this professional figure the guardian, builder, and manager of the brand, and of the company's identity and values, which are often embedded in complex branding architectures (brand/product platform manager or group brand manager) or the organization in its entirety (corporate brand manager).

The study has highlighted a high level of job satisfaction, which, as numerous studies show, has a positive effect on work performance. From ethnographic studies compiled by brand managers for a period equal to or longer than three weeks, the typical workday is described as "tiresome and stressful" as often as "rich, interesting, rewarding."

A statistical regression analysis has shows that the level of satisfaction (equal on average to 70% of its maximum value) is positively influenced by the company's level of market orientation (as measured by the well-established indicator proposed by Narver and Slater).

The orientation to the market also positively affects the evaluation process of work performance, in particular with respect to the procedural and distributional dimensions concerning procedures followed and the final outcome, respectively.

Summing up, in companies with higher market orientation, brand managers have higher levels of satisfaction, not least because the evaluation of his/her performance is more fair. The evaluation process looks at the economic results of the brand managed, his/her relational skills, and last but not least, his/her ability to innovate.