Brand Men Memo

Brand Men Memo

Neil McElroy · 1931 (View Paper → )

1. Study carefully shipments of his brands by units:
2. Where brand development is heavy and where it is progressing, examine carefully the combination of effort that seems to be clicking and try to apply this same treatment to other territories that are comparable.
3. Where brand development is light
1. Study the past advertising and promotional history of the brand; study the territory personally at first hand - both dealers and consumers - in order to find out the trouble.
2. After uncovering our weakness, develop a plan that can be applied to this local sore spot. It is necessary, of course, not simply to work out the plan but also to be sure that the amount of money proposed can be expected to produce results at a reasonable cost per case.
3. Outline this plan in detail to the Division Manager under whose jurisdiction the weak territory is, obtain his authority and support for the corrective action.
4. Prepare sales helps and all other necessary material for carrying out the plan. Pass it on to the districts. Work with the salesmen while they are getting started. Follow through to the very finish to be sure that there is no let-down in sales operation of the plan.
5. Keep whatever records are necessary, and make whatever field studies are necessary to determine whether the plan has produced the expected results.
4. Take full responsibility, not simply for criticizing individual pieces of printed word copy, but also for the general printed word plans for his brands.
5. Take full responsibility for all other advertising expenditures - Field, D.C.A. etc. - on his brands.
6. Experiment with and recommend wrapper revisions.
7. See each District Manager a number of times a year to discuss with him any possible faults in our promotion plans for that territory.

In short, when the brand men have approached their fullest responsibilities, they should be able to take from the shoulders of the Division Managers and of the District Managers a very heavy share of individual brand responsibility. This would leave the sales heads in a much freer position to administer the sales policies of the Company and apply general volume pressure without having to give such a large proportion of their time to thought on how to bring up volume on a certain brand in a certain part of the territory.

Some trace back the genesis of Product Management to the ‘Brand Men’ of the 1930s. For me the headwaters of Product Management can be found much later, when we started making digital products in the late 90s.