a) Converting brand strategies into innovative activity plans

defining local marketing objectives by brand and channel; generating creative ideas to stimulate consumer interest and sales growth; recognising potential opportunities for the brand in existing and emerging channels; tuning international brand mixes for brilliant local implementation; integrating activity proposals into coherent brand and category plans; developing local Communications Plans; aligning tactical activities with the brand’s Key Positioning.

b) Developing close marketplace connections with consumers

“hunting” for meeting points between the brand and the consumer; connecting with consumers in their homes, local stores, street markets, etc.; discovering the drivers of consumer shopping behaviour; exploiting databases to enable one-to-one relationship management; managing and supporting consumer advice and support services; resolving consumer complaints to the satisfaction of the consumer; capturing and responding to consumer feedback.

c) Implementing consumer activation programmes

specifying the role and objectives of Consumer Activation Marketing (CAM) within the overall brand/category activity plan; executing effective launch activities for new products; ensuring promotional activities support the Key Vision; developing platforms for integrated promotional, sponsorship, advertising and PR campaigns; creating a brand ‘experience’ for consumers; working with agencies to develop effective techniques and executions; planning and managing promotion implementation; involving other departments and external partners to enable operational implementation; exploiting databases to target promotional offers; assessing promotional effectiveness against brand and category plans.

d) Driving brand visibility and channel presence

bringing the brand to life at consumer destinations; identifying unconventional brand communication opportunities; exploiting brand icons and properties as communication vehicles; contributing towards the development of impactful point-of-sale materials; ensuring the brand is well merchandised, accessible and visible in all priority channels; using new product launches to advance brand visibility and channel presence.

e) Managing prices, profit margins and budgets

assessing the impact of pricing on purchase decisions and sales volume; determining price levels and promotion policy; monitoring and protecting brand profit margins; defining brand support priorities and budget allocations; controlling brand expenditure versus budget; delivering against annual profit targets.

f) Monitoring market developments and brand performance

checking brand in-market performance (e.g. sales, shares, distribution etc.); assessing developments in market size and structure; searching locally and internationally for intelligence about competitor activity and performance; responding to sales short falls or competitive challenges; monitoring developments in the political, legal and economic areas; defining marketing information requirements and systems; evaluating effectiveness of market support activities.

Tasks:

·      Check to see how the activity plans for major brands in your company are written down and summarised.

·      Ask your company planning manager to explain how the logistics behind your brand's distribution and promotion activities are managed.

·      Analyse marketing tracking data to discover trends in market size and structure.

·      Visit retail outlets to pick up merchandising ideas from brands in other categories.

·      Analyse shopper research studies to find out what drives consumer purchasing behaviour.

·      Review recent consumer feedback and complaints to find out the issues people have with our brands.

·      Draw up a typical schedule of your target consumer's daily movements and activities to spot

opportunities for your brand to connect with them.

·      Attend any major events or promotional activities run by a brand in your company.

·      Investigate promotional planning tools used in other industries and/or by customer partners.

·      Carry out a review of the activation "platforms" being used by major brands in your country.

·      Find out how brands in your company are attempting to measure the effectiveness of their activation activities.