Anna Kristina Bautista - How to Become a Proctor & Gamble Brand Manager in Asia

If youre considering a marketing career in Asia, whether youre a student or have a few years of work experience, Procter & Gamble is probably at the top of your list. A Fortune 500 company, P&G is known for its billion dollar brands. So, you know all their brands and their countless TV ads. You might even know a few people who work there. But you also know that P&G can be very selective in its recruitment, especially when it comes to marketing: P&Gs heart and soul.

What is Brand Management, Anyway?

P&G has invented a lot of things, from floating Ivory soap , to Pringles , and even the soap opera . But one of its greatest inventions is brand management . Brand managers arent just in charge of marketing; theyre tasked with building a brand as if it were their own business. This sets you up to compete not only with rival companies such as Unilever, but also with the person in the cubicle right next to you. If you work on categories like laundry detergent, where P&G has three or more brands, lunchtime conversations can sometimes turn awkward, if not tense.

But let me state this upfront: Brand management is not advertising. At most, youll work on advertising-related elements (e.g., TV ads and media planning) 30% of the time. The rest of the time youll be working on less exciting parts of the business planning price reductions or market research (good) or writing a detailed analysis on why your brand lost 5% market share last month (not good).

So why Procter & Gamble in Asia?

If you want to get in on the action and get your hands on the next blockbuster brand, theres no better place than P&G in Asia. With growth in the Western market stagnant , Asia has been leading P&Gs growth and is a core part of the company strategy .With P&G launching new brands into new markets in Asia, youll have plenty of opportunities to flex your marketing muscle.

However, with all of P&Gs prestige and brand-name appeal, there are plenty of brilliant young people who actually should not apply to P&G.

1. Your lifestyle wont be glamorous. While P&G pays competitively for a consumer goods company, you will never make as much as your friends in consulting or investment banking. While they may be stationed in a five-star hotel, youre more likely to be sweating it out in a far-flung village in Indonesia having an intimate conversation about a babys bodily functions.

1. The system is the star, not you. If you think youre the marketing Superman of your local university, then P&G is Planet Krypton. Your success is directly tied to your brands success (i.e., in terms of sales and market share growth). The system has little room for people with CEO-size egos without any results to show for it.

1. Youre highly creative and entrepreneurial. It may seem strange that working for the worlds biggest advertiser doesnt require a whole lot of creativity. P&G relies largely on its ad agencies to deliver the creative juice behind its brands. Your job as a brand manager is to come up with concepts that will score well in market research tests. If you have a knack for crazy ideas (which could work!) and acting fast, youll find P&G too structure and restrictive.

If the three reasons above havent daunted you from the joining ranks and being Procterized, keep reading.

1. Youll gain a solid marketing foundation. P&G is a mainstay on any Worlds Biggest/Best/Most Admired Companies list . Forget the Three Cs or Four Ps or whatever marketing framework you learned in school. P&G has its own tried-and-tested framework that it teaches in colleges and regular company-wide assemblies.

1. Every P&G brand has a purpose. As former P&G CEO A.G. Lafley put it, This is our purpose: toimprove the everyday lives of peoplearound the world with P&G brands and products that deliver better performance, quality and value. P&G takes this purpose very seriously and every brand is assigned a unique purpose beyond its functional benefits. If you can fundamentally believe that a detergent can be an instrument for social change, then P&G may be the place for you.

1. Youre analytical and data-driven. This is one of the top qualities that P&G looks for. You have to be a numbers person to make sense of tons of market research data day in and day out. P&G will train you to perfect your analytical thinking and apply it everywhere from budget planning to assessing your new TV ad. Some people I know even apply a data-driven approach to Friday night movie selection.

By now, you should have a better idea of what a marketing job in P&G may or may not entail. P&G has a strong culture and a very specific way of doing things, and its ultimately up to you to decide whether P&G is right for you. Better to think of this now than six months after taking the job and regretting it.

So youve made the decision to take a shot at getting into one of the worlds more revered consumer products companies. Now its time for P&G to decide whether you, over of hundreds of other aspiring brand managers, are the best fit for the job.

3 Things You Should Know Before Applying

1. The career path is very structured. Whether you are fresh out of undergrad, have an MBA or two years of work experience, everyone starts out as an Assistant Brand Manager (ABM) working on a specific brand or country. On average, youll be promoted to Brand Manager after completing two assignments, typically four to five years in total. A promotion in three years is rare, so dont expect to be a rock star ABM and get promoted in two years or less.

1. Not all roles are created equal. P&G is organized into different operating units, and depending on where youre assigned, your work as an ABM will vary. ABMs in the P&G Asia headquarters in Singapore work on a brands strategic direction (ad campaigns, pricing, product development), while ABMs in the local offices work on execution (in-store merchandising, PR events, house-to-house selling).

1. You cant choose your assignment. P&G doesnt post separate brand assignments you have to apply to a general Marketing vacancy. Recruiting is based on a certain number of vacancies and specific assignments are decided later on. In fact, they wont even tell you your assignment until after youve signed the job offer and meet your boss for the first time.

Depending on your background, you can make use of the following tips to increase your chances of success:

• If youre a business or marketing student: Attend P&G career talks at your school. This is crucial. If you are studying at one of your countrys top schools, P&G will definitely have at least one career talk and provide a link to a school-specific job posting. If youre planning ahead, getting an internship at P&G the year before you graduate can secure you a job offer by the end of summer (granted that you perform up to standard).

• If youre a not business or marketing student: Dont sweat it! P&G doesnt discriminate