PBL trigger 1: Brand management

The main problem:
How to understand brand management and the roles of the brand manager, the employees and external consultants?

Learning objectives:
1. What is brand management?                                       
2. What are the brand manager’s tasks and responsibilities?                            
3. What are the steps in the brand definition process?                                       
4. How does the brand manager work in cooperation with the company management, the employees and external consultants? (What are their roles?)    
5. Analyse the brand management of a chosen company.


1. What is brand management?

Brand:
When a product has a name, logo or symbol, it becomes a brand. A key is to identify the brand, distinguish it from others and establish an emotional connection with the product and the cutomer. This will make customers commit to the brand.

"A brand is therefore a product but one that adds other dimension that differentiate it in some way from other products designed to satisfy the same need". (Keller 2012)

Brand management:
Brand management is creating and sustaining a brand. It has to do with  managing the brand's tangible (product: product itself, packaging or service: customer experience) and intangible (emotional connections to the brand) charasteristic.

2. What are the brand manager’s tasks and responsibilities?    

Main task:

Brand managers plan and develop a brand in order to make a service or product more valuable. 

5P'S: product, price, place, proposition, packaging, promotion..

Skills: 

Creativity, innovativeness, risk taker, quick learner, out of comfort zones

Understanding customers (knowing the target market, what motivates them etc.)
Good organizational skills (collaboration with finance, marketing, adv. and media departments)
Research skills (market research)
Analytical skills (for market data

Requirements:

Degree in business, marketing 

Enthusiasm of product;)

In the trigger the responsibilities were:
"- Work with the commercial and shopper teams to identify local growth opportunities: develop support plans accordingly & initiate business case for new product launches.

Develop the communication and innovation plan for the Stills portfolio, including consumer and stakeholder’s communication, collaborating with local agencies, internal specialists, PAC as well as IMC teams.

Implement community marketing plans in close collaboration with the other functions in the Franchise marketing team (Experiential/ sampling, Media, Asset, Digital).

Leverage partnerships to enlarge impact of the brand highlights while optimizing efficiency.

Support the development of the appropriate tools and methods to evaluate all programs and include learnings for future repeat in local market.

Lead Monthly Performance Tracking and Budget Tracking for brands by extracting, analyzing and interpreting data resources autonomously

Manage the communication process and routines to engage the bottler to support with strong execution.

Ensure P&L delivery and mitigation plan if needed in close collaboration with all stakeholders."
(https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/382691674/)

3. What are the steps in the brand definition process?   

1. Identifying and establishing brand positioning
- "Brand positioning can be defined as the 'act of designing the company's offer and image so that it occupies a distinct and valued Place in the target customers mind".
A core mantra = expression that tells the most important aspects of a brand and its core values.

2. Planning and implementing brand marketing campaigns
-Brand elements: names, logos, symbols, packaging, slogans
-Marketing activities: strong, valuable and unique brand associations
-Secondary associations: borrowing some other associations for the brand to create some associations of the brands, which helps to build its brand equity. E.g. linking the brand to countries or other geographical regions, or other brands

3. Measuring and interpreting brand performance
-A brand audit: comprehensive examination of the brand
-A brand equity measurement system: set of research procedures designed to provide timely, accurate and actionable information for marketsers

4. Growing and sustaining brand equity
-Defining the branding strategy: guidelines to which brand elements to apply across the products offered. The brand-product matrix shows all the brands and products of the firm. The brand hierarchy shows common and distinctive brands in the firm's products.
-Managing brand equity: long-term vision of marketing decisions,
-Geographic boundaries, cultures and market segments: recognizing different consumers, international issues, global branding strategies

(Keller 2012)

4. How does the brand manager work in cooperation with the company management, the employees and external consultants? (What are their roles?)    

CEO: appoints brand manager for each brand giving the responsibility to ensure the sales of a specific brand

They work closely with many teams, including product developers, researchers, marketing personnel and creative agencies to make sure their company brand values and image are followed. They work both for consultancies and in-house marketing departments.)

Work closely with many teams to make sure their Company brand values and image are followed, e.g. with product developers, researchers, finance, marketing, advertisement and media departments..

If a new product is created, must contact product engineers, packaging team, legal head, creative agency, production house etc.

5. Analyse the brand management of a chosen Company.

I chose to analyse the brand management of Furla. Furla is one of the most famous Italian brand of bags and accessories.  It was first established in 1927 but they only shifted the focus on building the brand in the 1980's

"The company is present in 100 countries with 398 single-brand shops situated on the most prestigious international shopping streets, a distribution network with over a thousand official points of sales and important growing channels such as travel, retail and e-commerce. Each product is produced in the spirit of excellence and high quality, with an exceptional value for the price, continuing the great tradition of Italian craftsmanship."

Furla is considered a "luxury brand". However, it first started off as fashion brand. One can only achieve the status of a "luxury" brand once it has proven stability and quality of being timeless. Once a brand has managed to create timeless "classical" models that are permanent best-sellers, the brand goes from fashion brand to luxury brand. Although luxury brands such as Furla can trust their permanent products, they must still keep up with new designs each year and work to keep the customer's interest with different innovative ways of presenting their products.
There are also other factors that have affected the acquisition of the "luxury" brand title. Ever since the 1980's Furla has chosen their stores in strategic locations and downtown cities.

“In 2017, Furla will celebrate its 90th anniversary. It’s amazing how this brand managed to stay relevant and contemporary in the fashion world with the simplicity of quality handbags and accessories, whose bright joyful colors still speak to the modern girl just as they did in 1927. While it evolved, the brand has always been faithful to its tradition. This is apparent in New York through our variety of clients. We speak to three international generations of women: grandmothers, mothers, and daughters. The brand is transverse and that makes it very competitive, few other brands have that”.

According to the former CEO, Paolo Fontanelli, one of their main focuses is to "expand our brand all over the world. The Furla brand is our strongest asset: our brand awareness in the world is certainly superior to the size of our firm in terms of brand recognition."

"The brand is very strong in Asia, with Japan – where Furla was an early entrant – responsible for 26% of the brand’s sales globally, second only to its home country of Italy. It is planning to open its first store in Amsterdam and a second in Vienna this year too. More shops are planned in Istanbul, Turkey and in Russia this year, along with growth across Asia.

Furla’s pace of growth has speeded up significantly since Giovanna, who is the daughter of founder Aldo Furlanetto, became president in 1989. Furlanetto describes the company’s growth as cautiously aggressive. ‘With decades of experience in design and production, and because we are a private company with no debt, we could expand reasonably fast,’ she says.

But in a global world, a successful brand must expand. Furla is growing, but to seize its moment, the company needs an even more aggressive strategy. ‘You have to be everywhere,’ she notes. ‘So we decided that our roots are deep enough to speed up the growth of the company even further.’"

(https://retailwatch.info/news/Furla-has-expansion-in-the-bag/97742ac3-2311-45f4-9517-4a4ad9b20a7e)
(http://www.italtrade.com/spotlight/11793.htm)
(https://fashionbi.com/insights/marketing-analysis/accessible-luxury-where-is-furla-s-stand)
(http://www.marketing-interactive.com/furla-makes-big-marketing-push/)
(http://www.iitaly.org/magazine/focus/art-culture/article/furla-90-years-3-generations)

Sources:
Keller, Kevin Lane; Apéria, Tony; Georgson, Mats 2012. Strategic Brand management: a European perspective. Second edition. Pearson Education. Upper Saddle River
https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/382691674/
http://www.italtrade.com/spotlight/11793.htm