Curious about what a Brand Manager does all day? You’re in luck! This week Justen shared with TBE what it’s like to spend the summer getting a taste (no pun intended) of the Associate Brand Manager role at Kraft Foods. Check out his post below to learn more about his internship and how Booth prepared him for a transition into marketing.
– Beth
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It’s hard to believe, but I’m halfway through my internship as a Summer Associate Brand Manager at Kraft Foods and it’s been a blast so far. I have three main projects that have given me a great view into how brand management at a CPG really works: tracking the weekly performance of Philadelphia Indulgence, a new chocolate cream cheese spread; developing new usage ideas and recipes for Indulgence; and performing competitive analysis for a new category that Philadelphia is thinking about branching into. I can honestly say that my projects matter in the grand scheme of things and will have a big effect on how Kraft moves forward strategically, which is extremely satisfying as someone so new to the company. My projects are also a lot of fun, giving me the opportunity to be creative at my job in a way I never could before. This is especially true for the recipe-creation project wherein I work in the Kitchens testing out recipes to ensure that they are delicious, easy to execute, and nutritionally sound. It’s a tough job but somebody’s got to do it!
I’m also beyond satisfied with how much Booth prepared me to put my best foot forward at Kraft. Since Kraft is a very analytical organization, Booth’s quantitative approach to Marketing has served me very well, so I was comfortable pulling and interpreting the Nielsen data and other data-intensive reports that are so important to my job. I also feel like the resources offered to me through the Marketing Group (especially access to the second-year students who did internships at similar jobs) were instrumental in helping me understand what the internship would be like, putting me at ease for my first couple of weeks, which otherwise might have been overwhelming. These last 5 weeks of my internship will be bittersweet–it’s a lot of fun so I don’t want it to end so soon, but on the other hand I’m excited to get back to Booth for year two!
