Careers in Fashion: The Brand Manager
Roles Of Brand Manager In Fashion Industry
For fashion companies, one of the keys to success is managing what’s known as brand perception. “Brand perception and building an engaging brand story are fundamentals to consumer awareness, engagement and sales,” states Margaret Case Little, Senior Director of Communications for the National Retail Federation in a recent article, “How to create a better story for your brand.”
The relevance of brand management and marketing strategies for fashion companies have created fashion career opportunities for professionals whose roles are dedicated to these areas of merchandising marketing.
These fashion professionals develop strategic marketing initiatives that help tell the brand’s story. A huge part of this role is analyzing marketing research, identifying industry trends and the competition to discover what sets their merchandise apart. This information is used to tell a brand’s “story” to engage its customers.
Typically, the company’s marketing efforts begin with its Brand Management or Marketing Management team. Brand Managers formulate marketing plans to engage their target market, and delegate roles to appropriate company representatives.
For example, the Brand Management team might conceive and oversee the design of a company’s Fall campaign including, but not limited to visual strategy, including signage, advertising, lookbooks, product photography; outreach, including ad placement, web marketing, social media and public relations initiatives; and internal company programs such as training manuals and other in-store materials to aid sales associates and other brand ambassadors to communicate the company’s products.
Several departments might collaborate to execute a strong merchandise marketing strategy, their job roles overlapping to work toward the company’s big-picture goals. From marketing research, to consumer insights, advertising, merchandising, visual communications, operations and retail associates– all of these professionals likely work together to carry out a marketing plan and build a strong branding.
High fashion luxury brand, Burberry recently launched a successful brand strategy initiatives, according to Laura Gallagher, President of The Creative Company, Inc., a company dedicated to retail branding in the aforementioned NRF article.
When Burberry’s brand had become less relevant to today’s consumers, the company chose to engage new media to bring people into the brand.
“They’ve carefully combined their history with their future in a way that is captivating and astonishing,” states Gallager.
Gallagher also cites Apple, Target, Disney and Nike for their strong brand management initiatives.
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| Fashion merchandising for high fashion luxury brand, Burberry 2012. |
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| Fashion merchandising for high fashion luxury brand, Burberry 2012. |
