Comments on: How is a product manager different from a brand manager?

By: Roger L. Cauvin

Roger L. Cauvin — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 09:24:08 +0000

David, I’m not sure what you mean by “advertising”. Marketing experts Al Ries, Laura Ries, and Seth Godin advise building a brand through PR and word of mouth, not advertising.

Either way, brand management isn’t just a matter of PR or advertising. It can be strategic. It should precede and drive product requirements, marketing programs, packaging, and distribution.

By: David Locke

David Locke — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 00:28:28 +0000

John not all tech enters the market at the same place. If a product enters the late market, as with the current SaaS craze, then they need advertising on day one. If the product enters the market before the late market, they need advertising less. If the product enters the market before the IPO, you might only see advertising as a means of marketing to investors.

Brand is always. You hand out your first business card, and zap, you’ve been branded. You don’t wait for brand. You might wait for advertising. Advertising is a cost that many startups cannot afford. It is this cost that accounts for why they wait.

In the late market, the software commoditizes so quickly that you have to advertise. And, in the late market, the purchase decision is different. In earlier markets, it’s strictly economic buyer with user and technical enthusist recommendations. With the late market the user might just go totally with emotion. I’m not saying the economic buyer doesn’t buy on emotion and justify with facts, but the consumer won’t bother with facts at all. Different animals.

Most new tech companies that push a new tech won’t advertise until VC money shows up. Only after that infusion of VC money can they afford advertising.

Then, you also have to face the cultural division between techs and advertising people. Ad types don’t hire across the line. Maybe techs don’t either, but I’ve certainly seen the anthros and designers doing this.

The companies, your potential clients, are doing what is rational for them to do. Map it. Understand it. And, sell within that reality.

By: Ken Pomper

Ken Pomper — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 19:58:25 +0000

Brand is also very important in B2B. Ask the guy fixing your car what kind of tools he uses and he is likely to mention a brand for reasons that exceed the attributes of the individual products that he has bought.

Brand is a company asset and products are only one dimension of creating value for that asset. Product, service, guarantees, community involvement, marketing, and graphics can all be important components of creating value in a brand and must be strategically and consistently deployed. An excellent product can potentially subtract value from a brand/company and an average product can potentially leverage a brand to create more value.

By: Roger L. Cauvin

Roger L. Cauvin — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 18:22:32 +0000

It appears Saeed and Peter-John misconstrued the thrust of John Mansour’s answer. Mansour wasn’t defining software product managers as people who think features or technology first. Rather, he lamented the fact that they frequently do, and he suggested that software companies orient their product management more around the brand.

By: NWGuy

NWGuy — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 22:15:18 +0000

Thanks for the insights, you’re right that Brand Mgmt isn’t given much thought in the smaller technology companies. I see that partly as a function of company maturity and the different roles. Another aspect for software development, especially at smaller companies, is the drive to be first to market, with rapid upgrades to deliver full feature sets.

Brand management is more about customer perceptions; what is the reputation in the marketplace. Product management is how to get products/services to the market. Hopefully both of these functions compliment each other so that product rollouts are well received, and feedback is incorporated into future products.

Maybe with new Social Media tools the smaller companies will incorporate Brand Mgmt at an earlier stage. That may help them avoid the failure scenarios.

By: April

April — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 21:38:21 +0000

Interesting post John.
One of the big differences I see is that for many tech. products, the “brand” is the company brand and the product doesn’t have a brand separate from that. Some product managers have absolutely no tasks associated with driving the “brand” (this was certainly true at every one of the larger companies I worked at) but would of course be very concerned with the definition, sales and marketing of the product. I agree with your examples of Quicken, etc. as being exceptions where the product may have a real “brand” associated with it but wonder if there is a Brand Manager function there to manage those brands or if that is a task that is owned by the Marketing Communications group. It would be interesting to know.
April

By: Peter-John Taylor

Peter-John Taylor — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 15:15:55 +0000

John your focus is too narrow and this may have misled your comparison of product vs. brand management. Beyond software, the field of products we manage is extensive and as Saeed notes “product management is fundamentally about the market, market needs, business strategy and delivering successful products that meet market needs and drive revenue and profit.”

Our role as product managers is essential to, and influenced by, the priorities and challenges of both corporate and product brand management. And sales departments expect our collaboration for ‘competitive advantage’ in an increasingly complex marketplace.

By: Aman

Aman — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 05:48:43 +0000

Product and Brand are 2 separate words, and hence their management has to be different, unless both words are synonyms.
John, Can you please dissect the both in terms of the function points or functional area they need to address, to have clear demarcation between both .

By: Saeed Khan

Saeed Khan — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 04:07:45 +0000

Hi,

It is incorrect to define software product managers as people who think features and technology first. Perhaps BAD product managers do that, but software product management is fundamentally about the market, market needs, business strategy and delivering successful products that meet market needs and drive revenue and profit.

There is certainly a technology aspect to the role, but the focus has to be on how to leverage the technology to drive towards business needs.