The best time of year for a Marketer is now

I would argue this month is the most important and exciting month for a Marketer working in Reckitt Benckiser.
1. I’m developing my Brand Plan for next year
2. I’m finalising all the marketing mix activities for my New Product (NPD) that’s launching into market this September

Every brand has a Brand Plan which is written a year ahead and it’s used as the ‘bible’ for how you manage and promote the brand for that year.

Brand Plans are written over a few weeks as it’s a lengthy process to collate and make sense of all the learnings, research and data at our disposal and requires much strategic thinking. Although its lead by the brand, it’s a team effort between Marketing and Sales because at Reckitt Benckiser brands and numbers are at the heart of our business so the starting point is agreeing what the financial target for the brand should be. This is decided through many rounds of what we call ‘bottom up’ and ‘top down’ forecasting. Marketing and Sales forecast what we believe we can deliver and we marry this up with the top down target we get from the CEO. The Brand Plan then tells you how to strategically deliver this target…and at RB the targets are never easy, but that’s what ensures we deliver strong growth year on year!

At the same time…
New product development (NPD) is the most exciting project for any marketeer as you launch a new innovation for your consumers with a variety of marketing mix activities. Im currently developing these new activities for Strepsils which include new TV advertising, in store promotions, new packaging, PR campaigns and much more.

Developing and executing an NPD launch is the sexy bit of marketing and is one of the biggest focus areas for us at Reckitt Benckiser because our brands are our most important assets. I feel so lucky to be managing a brand like Strepsils which is over 50 years old! The consumer trust that comes with that is priceless.

Look out for the Strepsils NPD in the peak sore throat season in November & December. Let me know what you think, there’s nothing more satisfying than positive feedback from your consumers, so I hope you like it!