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In our consumerist society, where an extensive selection of products from various companies fills both physical shops and online stores, a brand needs an identity to truly pop within a potentially congested marketplace. Accordingly, a brand may need a brand manager. 

This role is a type of marketing job that monitors and nurtures a brand with the goal of influencing both consumer perception and purchasing decisions. If you are hired in this position for a new or relaunching brand, you may even be responsible for creating its image and then building brand presence and brand recognition as the brand grows to reach its target audience.

To ensure you hit your key performance indicators (KPIs) — which measure data based on your achievements against business goals — you’ll want to align your output with the following four processes: market analysis, strategy development, creative brainstorming and differentiation. The last of these refers to a way of coming up with several ideas that may steer away from a more linear, conventional marketing solution for your brand (especially if that one isn’t producing the desired results).

Here’s a list of tasks the role may involve:

• Researching your market by gathering data about consumer behavior and noticeable trends, then building a comprehensive strategy for your brand
• Researching your competitors — and zoning in on ways to enter their market (or to become more competitive within it)
• Maintaining a consistent aesthetic for the brand (based on a logo and color scheme created by your design team), which can be found in a style guide that applies across all social platforms, as well as consistent messaging (courtesy of your copywriters)
• Executing relevant marketing campaigns across several mediums and channels — from social media posts and content creation, to collaborations with ad agencies, to overseeing product placements
• Ensuring all campaigns — and any branding-related activities — remain within the budget
• Maintaining all on-brand aspects within new product development and potentially co-branding to expand to new markets
• Maintaining a positive brand image with proactive public relations endeavors, by coordinating events and by gathering customer feedback

In short, brand managers typically aim to dynamically engage with a brand’s intended demographic through a mix of research, analytical, communication, creative, collaboration, storytelling and problem-solving skills. With so much to do, it also helps if they are good multitaskers and project managers too.

So, what is a brand identity? Several distinctive, consumer-facing elements go into defining one, and these may include:

• The brand name and the history of the brand (if there is one)
• An undeviating story related to the brand (brand persona)
• Visual components that immediately connect consumers to the brand, from logos and specific font usage in content releases to packaging design
• A narrative tone that communicates the brand’s personality

Take a minute and reflect on your favorite brands. Can you picture any of their defining features in your mind’s eye? Think, for example, of a streaming platform. What color immediately comes to mind? Color can be used as a clever way to further solidify a brand identity while giving the brand a wider berth for ad revenue.

You may be part of creating this identity from scratch or adjusting it by using a SWOT analysis, which analyzes the following aspects of a brand:

• Weakness: Where is there room for improvement?
• Opportunities: How can the brand better keep up with emerging consumer preferences and any shifting tendencies in the market?
• Threats: Are there issues related to the brand’s reputation, cost changes, competitor advances or major tech updates to address?
  

A brand manager refines a product’s brand positioning, which typically begins with a powerful and purposeful mission statement that goes beyond just making money.

Then, through effective messaging and marketing campaigns, a successful brand position may provide unique and memorable examples of messaging that:

• Offer a catchy origin story
• Differentiate it from competitors
• Promise higher-quality products
• Offer superior customer service
• Ensure lower price points or exclusivity for certain brands

Basically, the brand position is anything that gives the brand a remarkable standpoint.