What are the most important skills to look for when hiring a brand manager?

There are 5 core traits that make a great brand manager, including a cheerful perspective that sees consumers as real people.  

“It’s  so difficult to hire brand managers. How do you identify good candidates at the interview stage?”  

No matter how much time you, the line manager, spend crafting the right job description, explaining your organization’s goals to HR, or interviewing as many candidates as possible, there are times when you still end up with the wrong hire.  

What did you miss? More importantly, were you looking for the right things? Beyond the general qualifications of a good hire — communication skills, creativity, a can-do attitude — there are things that great brand managers do particularly well that need to be proven during the hiring process. 

For 20 years, Acumen Strategy Consultants have been helping enterprises identify and develop strategic-minded marketing leaders capable of consistently delivering positive results. Here’s a list of things line managers — whether new or seasoned ones — can search and probe deeper for during the next brand manager search:  

1. Consumer Understanding / Insight Generation 

“Brand Managers need to first and foremost understand their customers,” says Liel Gonzalez, Client Director of Acumen Strategy Consultants. “To do this they must be able to listen and uncover expressed or latent needs/pain points that the brand can potentially address.” Know your consumer so well that you know exactly what they think, feel, and do — is your candidate able to do this?  

2. Analytical Skills 

“Brand Managers must be able to analyze what is happening to their business, and why, to spot issues and opportunities that need to be addressed to meet their business objectives,” Liel adds. “They must be comfortable with data and able to analyze these in a logical manner.”

Tonton Mapa, Vice-President for Capability Building at Acumen Strategy Consultants, agrees: “Brand managers regularly go through lots of information and data and need to be able to draw conclusions, make connections and come up with insights. This is why good business analysis is the foundation of effective brand management.” 

How comfortable is the candidate with numbers? How well does the candidate understand the industry, their real competitors, and what their brand must do to win?  

3. Customer Centricity 

Beyond mere empathy and more than a skill, customer centricity is a core value. Has the candidate consistently and effectively put the customer at the center of all decisions related to delivering products, services, and experiences? During interviews, ask for instances when the candidate has put the Customer first.  

4. Ability to work with and through teams 

“Brand managers need to work with people from different functions and parts of the company to grow their brands,” says Tonton. "So not just teamwork but team leadership is a key strength.” 

Communication skills play a big part, Liel adds. “Brand Managers typically lead their business teams and coordinate with other departments and stakeholders in the company. To be effective they must be able to communicate well and achieve a common understanding and collaboration with their business team.”  

5. “Optimistic Humanity” 

“This last one may sound a bit strange,” Tonton admits. “But from my experience, the best brand managers are those who demonstrate what I call ‘optimistic humanity’.  They relish life, are curious and positive and naturally seek to understand people and solve their problems. Whether it is about creating new products and solutions or developing new campaigns, successful brand managers are those who remember that behind the statistics, their consumers are real people with real needs, lives and loves.”