MarketingManagement.pdf

These tasks are common to both consumer- and industrial-product managers. How-
ever, consumer-product managers typically manage fewer products and spend more
time on advertising and sales promotion. They are often younger and MBA-educated.
Industrial-product managers spend more time with customers and laboratory and en-
gineering personnel, think more about the technical aspects of their product and pos-
sible design improvements, and work more closely with the sales force and key buyers.
The product-management organization introduces several advantages. The prod-
uct manager can concentrate on developing a cost-effective marketing mix for the
product. The product manager can react more quickly to problems in the marketplace
than a committee of functional specialists can. The company’s smaller brands are less
neglected, because they have a product advocate. Product management also is an ex-
cellent training ground for young executives, because it involves them in almost every
area of company operations (Figure 6-7).
But a product-management organization has some disadvantages. First, product
management creates some conflict and frustration. Typically, product managers are
not given enough authority to carry out their responsibilities effectively. They have
to rely on persuasion to get the cooperation of advertising, sales, manufacturing, and
other departments. They are told they are “minipresidents” but are often treated as
low-level coordinators. They are burdened with a great amount of paperwork. They
often have to go over the heads of others to get something done.
Second, product managers become experts in their product but rarely achieve func-
tional expertise. They vacillate between posing as experts and being cowed by real ex-
perts. This is unfortunate when the product depends on a specific type of expertise,
such as advertising.
Third, the product management system often turns out to be costly. One person
is appointed to manage each major product. Soon product managers are appointed
to manage even minor products. Each product manager, usually overworked, pleads
for an associate brand manager. Later, both overworked, they persuade management
to give them an assistant brand manager. With all these people, payroll costs climb.
In the meantime, the company continues to increase its functional specialists in copy,

chapter 22

Managing the

Total Marketing

Effort^685

Advertising

agency

Sales force

Manufacturing

and

distribution

Media

Research and

development

Promotion

services

Legal Packaging

Fiscal Purchasing

Market

research

Publicity

Product

manager

FIGURE 6-7

The Product Manager’s

Interactions