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What is it like being a Manager?

What is it like to be a Brand Manager at Unilever?

  • Or any of a number of similar positions at Unilever, such as Senior Brand Manager, Assistant Brand Manager, or Brand Development Manager. If you’ve worked in any of these or similar positions at Unilever, please talk to us about your experience. What are some of the things you enjoyed the most/least about the job and the company? Would you recommend the job to someone else? Etc.

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    I have not worked in any of the positions you described in Unilever.  But I have heard few stories about Unilever and Horlicks (GSK) 's marketing techniques. 1. In forties and fifties - there was no Dalda ( Vanaspati) and Dalda was introduced in South India for the first time.  What they did was - in order to create a brand of Dalda - the marketing people were asked to take the tins of Dalda around the cities and go to the hotels ( small and medium) and give away the Dalda tins freely.  After a week they used to come and take the empty tin and replace it with new tin. Over a time the customers were habituated to the new taste and the hotels started buying the Dalda - and because of the taste - the general public started buying Dalda for their house hold requirements as it was not like Oil or Ghee but in between and tasty.  That's how the Brand Dalda has come and by the time 60's the government was forced to control the price of Dalda. In another case in 70s  - the manufacturers of Horlicks wanted to bring out a product to compete with Bornvita - and they named it as "Astra" - the brand manager, VP Marketing and its advertising agency's chiefs  came over to Andhra  to launch the product but it was failed miserably.  No one has accepted.  In view of that - the brand manager, VP Marketing and the Advertising agency - all three were terminated over-night. You might have heard about "Chicklets"  - the largest selling chewing gum in USA was brought to India - and first introduced in Coastal AP cities in 70s.  One of my relative was working as Sales Representative for the Co which brought the product to India.  He told me that the Vice President of US operations of that product visited cities and towns - along with their Marketing heads to see an evaluate the customer preferences of Chewing gum.

Subramanyam Pidaparthy at Quora Visit the source

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Branding and marketing are the core competence of the company. Therefore, managing brands in Unilever could be both very challenging, demanding, but also fulfilling at the same time. I have been managing Sunsilk for almost a year now. The business goal of a Brand Manager itself is to increase market share and be a market leader. However, my day-to-day activities include developing strategic actions for the brand, working with creative and digital agencies to execute activations, working on business cases before launching a new product/variant, etc. A brand manager in Unilever needs to know every single thing about the brand and products from A to Z, since it is still a raw concept, to be a finished good on shelf or completed activation. I have to be the know-it-all, may it be about Sunsilk's followers on Twitter, to about how much should we invest in buying a new spare part in the factory to produce different shape of shampoo bottles. What I like the most is the fact that Unilever brands have great philosophies behind them. In Sunsilk, it really is about being on our girls' (consumers') side when they are writing their on stories. Sunsilk wants our girls to be able to work on their ways to reach their dreams (without having to worry about their hair, because Sunsilk takes care of their hair). This philosophy is very suitable with my passion - about reaching dreams, about writing our own stories (as I am a writer myself). The beautiful philosophies of these brands are something that keeps me working in the company everyday. What I like the least, however, is how everything needs to be done so quickly - sometimes you don't really have much time to work on it. Big brands like Sunsilk would have so many projects going on at the same time, and there are only 3 people in our team (Senior Brand Manager, Assistant Brand Manager - which is me, and Brand Administrator). Sometimes the deadlines and pressure could be overwhelming, but I think this might also happen in other roles and other companies. What I like the most about the company is how it is trying its best to work on initiatives to make the world more sustainable, by using less and less resources, while still being able to deliver exponential growth. Its CEO is a big supporter of Sustainability, and I'm happy to see this spirit is being cascaded through all parts of the organisation. I like the fact that by working in the company, I get to be involved in so many people's lives, given its scale... as Unilever products would probably be existent in every home.

Alanda Kariza

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