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I
love my job...As an MR Marketing Manager
The best bit of working as a marketing manager in an MR agency is the environment – working with a whole company of really bright, creative, innovative people ... generally, that is! Colleagues are full of ideas for innovative products, articles and papers they want to write and contacts they want to target – manna from heaven for your average marketeer. The variety of work in a full service agency is great with the scope to gain a detailed understanding of a huge range of sectors and issues – cars to alcopops with online banking and TV viewing patterns in between! Certainly, the order involved in the marketing process is reassuring. Working alongside statisticians and researchers means that, in theory, all marketing activity must be ordered,measured and ultimately linked to sales. Because this happens, it means that the marketing department is in a very strong position to justify its existence. The top dogs see that marketing is effective – both in terms of sales and in profile-raising – meaning that the necessary backing and the resources to continue achieving our objectives keep on rolling in. One of the major highlights of the average day is being presented with a vast mass of research material and crafting it into a press worthy story. This is no doubt made easier by the fact that the press actually approach me for stories. What a great position to find yourself in when negotiating regular coverage, placing articles, and for ensuring a constant presence on the most influential conference platforms! At the end of the day, for any self respecting marketing manager, raising awareness and enhancing the brand is the bottom line!
I
hate my job...As an MR Marketing Manager OK,so this industry is all very creative and innovative – but this in itself can make my daily objectives difficult. Harnessing that creativity,and pinning a group of self-motivated and very independent people down, could be compared to herding cats. The single largest problem I face is getting people to do what they ’ve promised,which then unfortunately impacts on my own efficiency and that of the team. In other ways, or at other times I feel that the market research industry is not creative enough, and squashes ideas that could help with the marketing process. Caution, rather than creativity, can rule the roost – while marketing is expected to deliver creativity, this is sometimes lost due to the time it takes to justify new ideas. Simply because procedures and processes have been in place for the past twenty years, that doesn’t mean it’s not time for a change or a fresh approach. It doesn ’t leave much room to grow and change to reflect clients’ requirements. At the end of the day it shouldn ’t be forgotten that clients are often creative marketing professionals too. Inevitably, I am going to mention the nutters on the other end of the phone line when stories break.You might assume if you believe in stereotypes that these are some of the worst moments for someone involved in marketing and PR for an agency. And ...you’d be right. It is always surprising how many people with esoteric views on the issue at hand emerge from the woodwork on publication of results [it ’s never that easy to recruit the ******s when you want their opinions ]. The one comfort? The fact that at least they are at the other end of the phone. The day they start turning up in the lobby I shall give some more serious thought to my career path – that is, once I’ve found a path down the back stairs and left the building. We ’ll see how well the researchers handle it... |
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