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Ah, Brand Managers, how are you? Good to see you. Welcome to your final QA session. I'm back from Cannes. Many things going on in Cannes, as usual. I'm not gonna bore you with all of them. I got to drive at very high speeds um through most of France with my CEO and fellow uh compatriot Tim. And we managed to stop off at a couple of wineries and you know enjoy the hospitality of France. Um that was good. It's kind of better than Cam. Cam was good, and we did lots of good business. But hanging out in France, the highlight still. It's a big country, man. It's a big country, and I do enjoy Beth France. My French is is worse by the year, but I enjoy I enjoy getting that out too. Um, yeah, so we had a good time. I got back yesterday. I'm extremely uh, extremely jet lagged. But um, and sorry we couldn't do our Q ⁇ A on the Friday, but I literally was on a plane, and then Saturday doesn't happen when you fly back from Europe, you you lose almost all of the day. So this is the earliest we could do it. Um, lots to talk about on the program. Uh, you've done your brand plan. I'm sure it was chaotic, doesn't have to be perfect. I've been great on the brand plan. We're gonna have the most fun possible now on the simulation. So I want to step back and talk you through that for a second, and then we'll get on to the questions. We've got about 20 minutes of questions, which will be good. But let's step back and let me just show you where we are and more importantly, where we're going. So here we are in QA 10 right now. What's gonna happen is uh these two big boys are gonna open up today. So today is Monday, and at midday UK time, these two will open up. Oh, no, they won't. I've got that wrong. Sorry, they don't ignore that, don't confuse anyone. This one opens up. I'll tell you about those two in a minute. This one opens up. So this is the simulator tile where if you've submitted an exam, which most of you have done, you will automatically get this one lighting up at midday. You don't have to do it straight away. The first thing to say is you have about 10 or 11 days to do the simulation, okay? It will take you could do it in an hour all five years if you did it really badly, right? So it's not an 11-day task, okay? But I want you to think about it. My recommendation, as you'll see when you do the introduction video, is do one year per day. Yeah, which is still five days, and you've got like, you know, nearly two weeks to do it. So you're not going to be under any time pressure. Okay, that's the first thing to say. The second thing to say is use the brand plan that you built to navigate the start of this. You've got you've you've built it in the same universe. Provided you're confident your brand plan is good, use your brand plan to guide what you do. You can change it as you'll see, but but if you believe in your brand plan, execute it. Now, some bad news, some good news. Late last night we found out there's no other way. I mean, how else do I put this? Uh you're you're well aware of your German colleague that was that's managing Mojo. Yeah? Um, well, he's resigned um and he's gone to work for tremendous. And we only found out last night. Um so he's gone, leaving us with a real problem because we have no one managing uh Mojo going into this important five-year period. So the board were unanimous in um wanting you to take over on both brands. So we're gonna make you the CMO, congratulations, big, big pay rise. Um, and now you have two brands to manage for the next five years in the simulation. Um, that obviously opens up a couple of options. The the marketing budget from MW is set, but how you allocate it between the two brands is now up to you. You don't have to spend equally, and in an extreme place, you don't have to spend anything at all. So you might want to not put any money on one of your two brands and effectively kill it. You could do that if you wanted. I want you to think carefully about that because that's a massive strategic decision. But certainly the balance between the two is now completely up to you. It's your baby. Okay? So think carefully on what you want to do there. Um, and step back before you get into the simulation because on top of doing moon now, you've also got to make a set of decisions for mojo as well. All right, so think about that for a second. It's a juggling game now. Um when you get into the simulation, as I say, the key is diagnosis, strategy, execution, plug it all into the sim, and then a year will happen. Spend some time rediagnosing how things have changed in that year before you move to strategy and execution again, obviously. Okay, it's a long game. Take your time, okay? Enjoy it. Yeah, you can do a little decision here and there, and then ponder it for a while. It will serve you well. And all I would ask you is once you get to the end of year five, you'll get your final decisions. You're gonna be judged on your share price, just your share price, which is you know assessed very fairly as well. Um, so when you get to the end, take some screenshots of your five-year journey of revenue, profit, share price, and share it with the group on LinkedIn. I love to see it, and everyone else loves to see it. And any learnings you've taken, you're all going to get a different journey. The sim is very advanced and complex. So everyone will have a different path. So it's really interesting for everyone to see how it all plays out. Okay. So enjoy the simulation. It will be if you haven't submitted a brand plan, forget about it. You got 10 weeks, 10 days off. But if you're going into the sim, enjoy it. It doesn't matter, it's about learning. Sometimes getting it wrong is a better learning experience for you and better value than getting it right. Okay. So don't panic if it goes horribly wrong. Laugh at yourself and enjoy it and learn. Okay. Then what happens is you submit or you finish your decisions by the 10th of July, and then we suck all the information up and do a quick analysis. And then 10 days later, these two tiles open up. So July 20th, and again, you don't have to be there on July 20th. They'll be open for the rest of the time. The portal is open, which is until the end of July. So at some point between July 10th and 31st, go to the course conclusion portal, and there there will be a module with me. We'll summarize the course, we'll summarize the uh simulation brand planning exercise. We'll look at some winners, some people that did really well, key lessons of the program, and then next steps for you as a brand manager. Okay, so proper conclusion, and you'll also be able to get your certificate downloaded with or without a grade here as well. Yeah. Now the platform will close at the end of July. You will then join our alumni. And I've said this 900 times, but let me say it again. You will then have access to all the material forever as part of the alumni. Okay, so there's no rush. There's no rush here. All right, let's get under your does that make sense? I'll I'll be on the LinkedIn group while I'm on my vacation. So if you have a big question, you can pose it there and I will get onto it. Use the LinkedIn group, but basically now enjoy yourselves in that simulation. Do a good job, savor it, take your time. Okay, let's get to some questions. I hope we have some good ones before we before we finish. All right, Fahad. I have a question regarding media budgeting. When budgeting the comms budget, should we include both media spending creative production costs, or should the budget only reflect media spend? It's a bit of a false question because of the way moon is, and it actually doesn't matter, Fahad. In the scheme of things, you'll you it'll play out the same way. Generally speaking, the right answer is in media you only talk about working capital. So you talk about the actual media budget, not all the agency fees and creative costs. That's normally how it goes. Your other question is if we're targeting multiple segments, can we reuse the same asset? You can, but make sure it's relevant because it might be a false economy. Oh, I've used the same ad twice. Great, but theoretically, if they're different segments, it probably won't work so well. Uh, Katie, in planning marketing, spend for the year ahead and the RD taking 12 months to implement, would any launch activity for that device fall into the following year's budgeting, or would the device come into effect at the end of the financial year? Now it comes in the next financial year. So your RD team always takes a year from the year you brief them. So it's it's done in unrealistic chunks. Carolyn, a question on diagnosis for pre-launch brands. Do you have any tips on how to build an end of discovery list for a product that isn't yet on the market? I imagine the data sources look quite different, limited, no real-world evidence on consumer associations, but are there frameworks or proxies you'd recommend? And more broadly, beyond tactics, pre-launch, launch, post-launch, what what would you say the strategic logic of the brand plan itself changes for a yet-to-be-launch brand? Not quite, but let's do them in there's two good questions there. So I think, yeah, so when you do your initial brand diagnosis, there's no brand to diagnose. So it's far more like market research, Carolyn. You're looking at competitors, you're looking at the category, you're looking at future trends. The only thing you can do, which is very useful, is research on the ideal brand. So you can sometimes prompt the consumer, imagine your ideal brand, what would it be, you know, that can be useful. But obviously, there are some big gaps there because you don't have a brand yet to diagnose. That's the that's the big difference. Um, in terms of differences in brand pattern, the big one is making sure it's ready to go to market. Well, I worked on a lot of medical and pharma stuff and some consumer stuff where you know we're launching a future brand. The big one is when is it going to be available? The rest of it's the same. But the big issue is that we really, you know, you go into Q1 of next year with an existing brand, you know you've got plenty of product. You you you often don't know really when the thing's gonna go, and it can be horrendously delayed. That would be my big, big concern. Meg, for moon, is there an expectation to build a custom funnel? No, it's not possible. Do it in the real world, Meg. In the unreal world of Moon, you have to use the very generic funnels I've pre-built for you. Saskia, I have a question with regards to brand codes. Can brand codes be revitalized purely through comms when the design of the moon sonar can it be changed to match? It's your call. You know, for what it's worth now that we're in there and you've submitted your brand plans, I would have gone back to black and white. I would have just bitten the bullet and gone back. Um, it's a hypothetical question. It doesn't come up in the sim, but I think it was the right call. Olivia, I have a question on loyalty metrics when setting the budget. One of my objectives focuses on increasing the number of promoters of Moon from 5 to 10%. But there isn't technically a track revenue for this. What's the best way to include it in budgeting? Yeah, any of these non-funnel metrics, you've got two choices. And this is applies to the real world too. You can either just not have a dollar value, even though there's a dollar cost. And what you're trying to say is look, this is a long-term value for the brand. My other uh monetary objectives are going to carry this one when you look at the overall numbers. This one is one of them I'm gonna carry because it's so important. I think that's the right way to go. Or you can link in your case the fact that increasing the number of uh promoters will drive preference among others by 10% and measure the 10%. That's a bit more of a fake approach, but you can do it that way too. Anastasia. Hi, Mark. I went to the tactics module and I have a question on the difference between tactics and big brand idea. Okay, the tactics you shared are very long-term and highly linked to brand position. What is the difference to big brand idea? How does the big brand idea link to positioning? Well, the idea, and look, it's only just a silly little thing, is that sometimes you'll have a creative agency will take your strategy bones and come up with kind of a more holistic creative platform in which to drive the tactics. When we worked on Don Perignon, we had a very clean DNA, and then the agency came in and said, actually, we're going to call it something. I'm going to unite some of this stuff together. I'm going to call it the power of creativity. And it was kind of a big brand idea that came from some of the genes in the DNA. So it's, I wouldn't get too hung up on it. It's just something that can occasionally happen and can be good. Anastasia again, um, on objectives. When you were talking about the ultimate number of objectives, two to three, maybe four, was it per segment or total? It's total. So what we're saying is a handful, five maybe max, for the brand. And there's a tendency for big brands to go, oh, yeah, yeah, but that's not practical for me. I'm a big brand. No, no, no, no. The objectives just have bigger scope, but the the data on this is pretty clear. You really want a handful of objectives to be the focus. Not just two or three is very tight, yeah. What we're saying is four or five. Um, any more than that, and it starts to become less likely you will deliver. So that's gear again. One more question. Could you tell us a bit more about the simulation? Yeah, I've sort of mentioned it already. Um the daily time investment is very, very small. It's more thinking about the results that come back. So you're not you're not gonna be pulled into it. And you can stop at any point and walk away and come back to it a day later and it's still there. So it it's very, very, we've made it very user-friendly. Yeah, and you you will certainly have enough time, Saskia. You're not gonna be rushed. Quite the opposite. You're gonna rush it, is my prediction. Martina, sorry for the long question. That's okay. We are facing a complex branding challenge. Our company operates a network of gas stations in a country different from our HQ. Due to a series of historical branding decisions, our stations currently operate under three different brands: 60% brand A, 35% brand B, uh, 5% under newly introduced brand C. Okay. Following a recent corporate rebranding initiative, same logo in new colors, new name, the original brand A is well known among customers, while brand B and C are literally invisible. The latest rebranding is planned to be completed within the next four years. However, we can communicate externally only the newest brand C identity. As a result, customers do not associate our advertising campaigns, brand colours, new name, with the stations they visit. How should we approach the situation and what strategies could help us to keep customer recognition during this transition period? So the latest rebranding is Okay, the original brand A is well known while B and C are invisible, and the latest rebranding is planned to be completed. I mean, there's an obvious thing here, Martina. Um I I don't see the necessity to maintain brands B or C in anything in your question. Can you just get rid of them? And and I don't want to say that we use the word rebrand, but just essentially use brand A for everything. I think gas stations are one of the things where familiarity is particularly useful. And I can I recommend that yeah, you just go with brand A for all of them? Is there a reason we can't do that? Because it does sound like a winner. But yeah, I work in video games, yes, where development cycles can be quite long and five years can go between two instalments of the same franchise. If the franchise is the brand, how would you set a budget balance between the long and the short? Does it make sense to keep promoting games as back catalog products for short-term activation with 40% share of investment? Or is it legitimate on some years to favor only the brand between releases? Well, another option. You maintain 60-40 or whatever the split is, but you're just spending a lot less, right? That might also be an option. Have a look at the track suit calculator and plug it into that and see what it says. Um, my suspicion is yeah, you your investment level will come down, and the balance between the two remains the same. Uh Katie, also a fan of UK TV's creation of the Dave channel, bold and brilliant. It was a really clever bit of work, eh? What are your thoughts on the recent brand architecture shift to an endorsed brand? Yeah, you and Dave, connecting to the rebranded streaming device service U. Uh equity lost or smart play? I think equity lost. I think it's too much of a smart compromise. Dave is Dave, man. That was the point. Sophie, when using the annualization calc, does the back end assume different ad stock and effectiveness? It's not that clever, no. After the sim, would be able to access some of that data. It's really basic so it just looks at what the tool does in terms of long and short over the course for moon specifically. So it's of very little value for anyone else. It just fills a hole that otherwise you guys would need an agency for. Tara Dunn. What makes a product a brand? Hello. My org is a brand arch, it has a brand architecture pickle. We're trying to delogo product lines and absorb them into company brands. Hmm. So the products still remain under the original brand name just without a logo. Okay, it makes sense. So brand teams are defaulting to putting logos back on them as the name is known in their particular market. Does it matter? After all, a brand is more than just a logo. And what makes a product a brand and vice versa? Is it really a brand if you're not doing any brand tracking? Yeah, yeah. Don't get too caught up in this tarot. You'll end up tidy knots. Here's what I recommend you do: look at the position on the brand relationship spectrum known as branded house, different identity, and go that way. You'll see exactly what I mean when you read up on it. Branded house, different identity. Veronica, just a couple of questions on terminologies I've missed. Okay, okay. If we're pairing a corporate brand with property brands in a house of brands setup, would that be considered endorsement or co-branding? So if if they're from the same company, it's almost certainly endorsement. Or if a JV or partner brand is also including a lockup, does that change how it should be defined? Yeah, well, if it's someone from a different company that it it edges towards co-branding, it could still be endorsed, but now it's in a yeah, I'd have to have a look at it. It could be, yeah, you're in a gray area there. It could be either or both. When looking closer at the employer brand and considering the employee life cycle from attraction, internal brand, and alumni brand, do you have any best in class examples of who's doing this right? I like what McKinsey do here very much. I think McKinsey's used a lot of their own expertise in thinking about how to get people into McKinsey, how to make them work hard for McKinsey, and then how to be recommenders of it when they leave McKinsey. They'd be my best in class. How would you classify a system where a department or initiative has its own look and feel, driven by colour and naming conventions, but remains fully within the master brand with no separate logo? What do you call this type of system? That's a branded house different identity. There you go, full circle. Uh, Nikki, how was Cannes? I heard you run into the Dark Lord. Yeah, three times I ran into the Dark Lord. Um, we did the debate on the Monday. That was scary. We were meant to have dinner on the Sunday night in Nice, in his apartment in Nice, Kianti, and uh uh some fava beans. But we got there, I got there at 10 to 7 by driving illegally fast through the streets of Provence, and then um he cancelled our dinner. I don't know, just did. So I was like, right, okay, I'll sit here and drink heavily for the evening and on my terrace. Um so then we met on the Monday and we didn't have anything planned because we were meant to plan it over dinner. So he came in, you know, quite stressed, I have to say. And as we were sort of chatting in the in the room behind the sort of grand stage, the the news was filtering in that not only were there three and a half thousand people in the audience, there was a line of another thousand people trying to get in, which did not help calm the Dark Lord, it has to be said. So I sort of took it upon myself to kind of be both guest and host of that session, I have to say. So I started like making up questions while we were doing it. You know, we didn't have a script. And um afterwards, people were like, Oh, it was it's amazing how you made it look so natural and not scripted. And I was like, Yeah, yeah, it's amazing how we did that, isn't it? But it went really well. He he calmed down, we had a properly interesting chat about a couple of different things. I'm sure there's a video coming. Then we did a Ask Us Anything with like a hundred CMOs, also fine. And then we did a podcast with John Evans on the Friday before I finish, which will definitely be live in a couple of weeks. And there that was really nice. I mean, I uh you know, people don't realize with Byron, he's um, and we have been talking for a long time. He doesn't make a big salary, he's on a he's the real deal, you know. He makes a professor's salary, which is two-fifths of nothing, in my opinion. And he could obviously make a lot more, so these, you know, you've got to give the man a bit of respect. Um so there's a lovely bit where and then I asked him about whether it it was a f if he was offended that I called him the Dark Lord of Penetration. And he doesn't quite compute these things, and he said, Well, it isn't incorrect, so no. But there was no huge, it was just like, no, it's fine, I don't care, you know. And then John asked him, What do you call Mark? And he was like, Oh, I was gonna say nothing. And he said, Oh, Mark's the like the best business journalist in the world. Which John was like, Oh, that's such a nice thing to say, but it's not, it's a real I have a PhD too. Do you know what I mean? I was a professor for 25 years, too. It's a really clever way of sticking it right up my nose, which I thought was and it did make me laugh. And I'm like, oh thank. And I had to look gracious on the podcast, but actually, I'm like, yeah, I know what you're up to. So it was fun, it was it was great fun. And as I mentioned on the podcast, it's like, you know, you're stuck with them. We're the same age. We're gonna go in. We came in and we'll go out together. So, you know, you've got to make it work somehow. But I really think both of us did well out of it in the end. The rest of the can was good, but not much focus on creativity. Um, a lot of discussion of creators, which means it's here to stay. I found it very balanced, which I wasn't expecting. AI is sort of in balance, creativity's in balance. Feels like everything's kind of alright at the moment. Apart from the number of marketers, I learned from the Ipsos data, we've got literally half the jobs being advertised this year as they were five years ago in marketing. So that the the AI thing is real and it's gonna it's gonna tighten the discipline considerably over the next five, ten years. That that bit's serious, you know. But it was good, it was good. I'm sure there'll be lots of coverage of it. I'm kind of I was just glad to get home. So I went to Swit I went to Switzerland on the Friday for my I do a lot of work for Nestlé, and they have a very nice office in Vevey. So I got to Switzerland on Thursday night, really ready to get out of a can, and it was 32 degrees, and the Swiss were having this lovely festival in Geneva. There's only the Swiss can next to the lake, lots of food stalls, lots of local Swiss beer. And I was like, right. So I took all my clothes off and went for a big swim in Lake Geneva, which was amazing. And then I had about six pints of Swiss ale looking at Mont Blanc, which is also amazing. And then I got up and worked for Nestle on Friday. So it was that was almost the best thing of all getting to Switzerland and hang out. The Swiss are alright, man. Gotta like the Swiss. They're not as wound up as everybody thinks, man. Swiss are pretty pretty funky Europeans. You know what I'm saying? There's a lot of marijuana being smoked by the lakes of Lake Geneva. I can tell you that much. Not by me, but by lots of Swiss people. So you think the Swiss, you know, they have this reputation. They're quite funky, you know what I mean? Quite a funky bunch. Uh Carolyn, hey Mark. First of all, I really enjoyed the course. I work in Pharma and was happy to see that you presented a a patient funnel in the objectives module. Um, not the first, um, what do we used to call them, Carolyn? Buying path that I've been involved in in medical. How would you link the patient funnel together with a funnel for HCPs? I hope the question is not too specific. No, no, no, no. You and I both know our HCPs. Um, it depends, Carolyn. If you've got a different sales force and a different market uh and a sort of consumer patient marketing team, you can have different funnels. When I and that that's appropriate for pharma, especially, where the doctor is the strong force. But in things like renal, where the patient has a lot of say of how they're being treated, as well as the nephrologist, I really like the patient flow. So you you you do it with patients all the way down, and the doctor comes in at some point with the with the options, and the patient chooses, and it's the the so the the the HCP becomes really uh a percentage factor. Yeah. Does the HCP do this or this? And then you bounce them off in the flow chart and they move left or right. That makes sense. So my favorite was always it's a waterfall, and the patience of the water is the best way to do it in pharma. And God knows I've built enough of those things to know what I'm talking about. Two more to go. Carolyn again. Question in respect to brand hierarchy in life sciences pharma. Would it be correct to describe most pharma companies' hierarchies endorse a brand structure? Yeah, it would. In which primarily the product is is promoted but with a clear link to the corporate brand. How important, in your opinion, would it be for pharma companies to build the corporate brand? And one more question to the Sonai case study. Well, let's do that one first. Um, yeah, I think that's about right. I think there's room to be more creative with it, Caroline, but it doesn't happen very often. Patent protection is obviously the issue. Yeah. At some point, you need your corporate brand because, you know, I don't think everyone follows this, but Viagra is, you know, you can buy it, but nobody would because it's off patent protection for 10 years. And for a tenth, a hundredth of the price, you can buy an Indian version of the molecule. Um, and that's that's the bargain that every pharma company plays with governments. I'll get 20 years of protection, but at the end of the 20 years, everyone can make it. Um, so for that reason, you have to have corporate brand as well, Carolyn, because at some point, obviously, your beautiful consumer brand is going to become a commodity, whatever happens. And it's a part of marketing I love. You know, it's a real complexity. Anyway, oh, one more question about um fake. Uh, if you want to increase consideration by 10%, would it be enough to reach the 14,000 incremental consumers at a defined frequency, or is there a multiplier that would typically be applied? Thank you. Too detailed for me to answer, Caroline. You have to get into your major agency friends to answer it. And our final question will go to Felencia. Felency, I'm gonna look down here, Frencia. Thank you so much. Another brilliant course. Yeah, Ferenc, you know, you're almost done. That's it. You know, we've done marketing with you. Remember you from marketing and now you've done brand. Anyway, keep going. A couple of questions. Any tools you can suggest on where we can find share of voice data at a global level for specific sectors? I think share of voice has become something that uh I would absolutely recommend you use synthetic data for. I think Claude can do a pretty amazing job of building you excess share of voice per segment per market with more accuracy than our old-fashioned estimates could have. I'd be all over AI for that, and common AI will do it for you. Any suggestion readings on destination marketing? I saw the FEK study on tourism Australia, but I'm keen to see if you had other resources. I uh no, no, I don't know enough about it, and I I wouldn't deviate. If you go if there are some specialist things, Florency, but they're really poor. I'd be, you know, if you look at, you know, I'm good friends with Susan Coghill who runs tourism Australia. She's a brilliant scholar of marketing and and she works in tourism, but she would never see herself as a specialist. And I think that's good general advice. All right. Brilliant questions as ever, guys. Um, now enjoy that simulation. Have some fun. Go easy. If if it goes badly, laugh at yourself and learn. That's the point here. Um, post up your results when you're done on LinkedIn. Any questions, I'll try and keep monitoring them from the pool because I'm having a holiday starting next week. Um, and then we'll come back and do a proper finish, okay? So it's not over yet. And remember, you've got access to it forever. You know, we we you know, it's not a bad price when you think about it. So we'll you've got material you've got the material forever. But for now, those of you going in the simulation, enjoy it. It's gonna be fun. It's gonna be the one of the best learning experiences of your life. So really enjoy it, and I'll see you on the other side. For those about to destroy brand equity, I salute you. See you in July.