WHAT DOES A GLOBAL BRAND MANAGER DO?
Published: Apr 21, 2025 – The Global Brand Manager creates and implements annual marketing strategies with clear segmentation, market channels, and customer targeting plans. This position uses data-driven insights, market research, and customer analysis to refine brand positioning and improve marketing effectiveness. The manager also coordinates campaigns with advertising partners, adapts to market trends, and ensures brand consistency across all organizational touchpoints.
A Review of Professional Skills and Functions for Global Brand Manager
1. Global Brand Manager Functions
- Brand Planning: Develop an annual brand plan that contributes to sales, profit, and brand health objectives
- Brand Strategy: Translate brand strategies into brand plans, brand positioning, and go-to-market strategies
- Creative Development: Lead creative development for global packaging and product innovation
- Brand Guidelines: Develop global branding guidelines and lead global branding initiatives (e.g., packaging redesign)
- Market Research: Identify opportunity areas for growth by effectively using consumption data, marketing research, competitive intelligence, and market trends
- Business Case Development: Develop a supporting business case for any global new items, and develop a channel strategy
- Product Innovation: Lead the Product Innovation process from concept to execution in the market
- Project Management: Manage the product development pipeline – managing projects on time and on budget
- Cross-functional Collaboration: Partner with cross-functional partners (sales, production, procurement) for successful product launches
- Brand Performance Analysis: Manage, track, and analyze brand health performance across all regions
- Market Performance Analysis: Track and analyze the market performance of a segment by monitoring sales, distribution, market share, and retail consumption
- Agency Management: Manage agencies for assigned projects/initiatives such as global creative development, brand health tracking, syndicated data (Nielsen), etc.
- Brand Compliance: Ensure brand compliance across all regions (e.g., packaging, promotions, POS, etc.)
- Trademark Management: Maintain and manage trademarks and patents, and licensing
- Profit and Loss Management: Responsible for brand Profit and Loss and market share in each respective region
2. Global Brand Manager Overview
- Brand Planning: Contribute to the development of an annual brand plan for Fitness and Progress LTCC in partnership with M/W/K teams.
- Seasonal Planning: Partner with the Brand Director Fitness to deliver comprehensive seasonal plans for Fitness that contribute to the overall Perf Brand Plan.
- Consumer Journey Creation: Create key consumer journeys/stories across key modalities within the Fitness space.
- Product Merchandising: Partner with product merchandising to support product positioning, navigation, and naming.
- Marketing Planning: Support marketing plan/Seasonal Story for Fitness/Progress LTCC
- O2O Journey Management: Support the briefing and management of key O2O member journeys/flywheel inventory to hand off to geo teams
- Consumer Engagement: Support daily engagement and retention for all key approaches (by gender/dimension/LTCC).
- Product Positioning: Support product positioning and navigation for direct (O2O)
- Geo Communications: Lead/support Geo seasonal communications and deliverables hand-off
- Consumer Expertise: Serve as a specialist within the M/W/K construct teams on the Fitness consumer, future trends, and areas of opportunity
- Consumer Insights: Partner closely with the Consumer Insights team to identify and act on insights.
3. Global Brand Manager Duties
- Marketing Strategy: Annual Marketing Strategy and Plan, including routes to market, segmentation/targeting, marketing channel mix
- Data-Driven Insights: Having a deep understanding and leveraging data to drive ever more exciting insights for customer segmentation
- Market Research Management: Develop and maintain market research databases
- Stakeholder Communication: Disseminate information to appropriate parties to build stakeholder awareness of market trends and to develop strategies that enhance the company's market competitiveness
- Survey and Focus Group Analysis: Develop market surveys and conduct focus groups to analyze customer purchasing patterns, preferences, view of the organization's image, and the organization's marketing effectiveness
- Marketing Evaluation: Conduct analyses, investigations, and evaluations
- Corporate Branding: Support and ensure maintenance of a consistent corporate image throughout the SoftServe organization
- Agency Communication: Communicate with outside advertising agencies on aspects of ongoing organizational campaigns, such as marketing strategies and marketing initiatives
- Campaign Adaptation: Ensure campaigns adapt to changing market trends
- Campaign Development: Participate in discussions involving changes to campaigns or the development of new marketing campaigns
- Campaign Execution: Build, execute, measure, and optimize Marketing Leadership campaign in support of SoftServe brand awareness and consideration objectives
- Demand Generation: Connect to demand generation to capture audience, engagement, and the right next touch
4. Global Brand Manager Tasks
- Integrated Marketing: Partner with Brand Directors to lead integrated marketing plans from inception to execution
- Strategic Planning: Build marketing briefs, craft strategic recommendations, and coordinate campaign executions across teams by driving efficiency and impact
- Digital Consumer Experience: Work across Global Geographies and Cities to drive a robust concept map and continually build new, digital-first consumer experiences that accelerate brand and business growth opportunities
- Lifestyle Brand Planning: Partner with Women's and Kids Construct to deliver a comprehensive Lifestyle Brand Plan that energizes the sport style innovation dimension
- Consumer Insights Alignment: Assess concepts and strategy against consumer insights and the Sport Style Innovation dimension, to drive upstream strategic go-to-market checkpoints
- Product Merchandising: Partner with product merchandising teammates to support product positioning, assortment, and naming
- Creative Development: Shepherd the creative process of seasonal stories from brief through to execution and Geographies/Cities hand-off
- Business Performance Optimization: Partner key strategic markets to deliver continuous improvement in business performance, 12QP, and the innovation agenda
- Innovation Leadership: Lead disruptive global innovation projects (InnoFlex) end-to-end, to boost brand growth in selected channels, including leading cross-functional teams, research work streams, and comprehensive validation of future mixes
- Agency Collaboration: Work closely with strategic global Design, Communications, and PR agencies to develop assets relevant to the projects
- Campaign Management: Author campaign briefs and track campaign readiness by setting marketing indicators that improve user acquisition, engagement, retention, and evangelism
- Campaign Analytics: Track and interpret campaign performance data and translate it into actions
5. Global Brand Manager Roles
- Insight Generation: Lead the generation of insight-driven recommendations using various inputs (primary research, secondary research, database data)
- Cosmetic Marketing Knowledge: Communicate a thorough knowledge of cosmetic product information – marketing initiatives, market research techniques, promotional venues, brand strategy, future challenges, and opportunities that will influence the brand
- Brand Campaign Development: Author and direct the creation of brand campaigns rooted in client objectives, audience insights, and a deep understanding of cosmetic marketing strategy across the full range of traditional and digital channels with demonstrable, quantifiable impact
- Client Communication: Facilitate rich discussions with and lead presentations to clients and prospective clients regarding their current and potential brand campaigns and programs
- Partnership Building: Foster strong partnerships with internal (creative, account, marketing intelligence) and external (agencies, vendors) teams to create client-centric, results-driven programs and campaigns
- Brand Launch Support: Support the launch brands of the Sandoz Biopharmaceuticals unit by implementing the commercial and brand strategies, including lifecycle management activities
- Patient Program Design: Support the design and guidance for the implementation of patient support and risk management programs for launch brands
- Tactical Implementation: Deliver specific and implementable tools and tactics to stakeholders to drive increased competitiveness
- Stakeholder Communication: Ensure effective proactive communication with key stakeholders in Global, Regions, and local markets
- Brand Planning: Support global brand plan and budgeting management, forecasting, including the execution of global key deliverables
- Promotion Planning: Plan product promotion tactics, develop the scheme, forms, methods, and technology of promotion (action plan, media plan), to implement the terms of the financial discipline following the budget
- Supply and Demand Planning: Plan the supply and demand for products within the area of responsibility, create cycle plans, implement, and forecast turnover (yearly marketing plan, rolling forecast, monthly secondary sales plan)