How to recruit the best Brand Managers for Alken-Maes

White Paper
Lode Soenen - november 15 2011

Lode Soenen email: lodesoenen@hotmail.com White Paper Alken-Maes

Alken-Maes is a Belgian based company with a long tradition and a strong reputation in brewery and distribution of beverages. With an important focus on green brewery and respecting their baseline Brewing a Better Future, the group firmly believes in sustainability as a key value throughout the organization. Their brands should be solid, profitable, and produced with the highest care for people and environment. In order to meet these expectations for each and one of their brands , Alken-Maes wants to recruit the best brand managers to guarantee the best and most sustainable future for their brand portfolio. Alken-Maes holds several consumer products in its brand portolio. Maes, Grimbergen, Christal, Desperados are a few examples. to the right people and vice versa. Talking about the right people, this brand manager should also be the right person on the right job. A creative employer branding, combined with an effective assessment, can result in the best candidates for the job. As a consequence of ever changing trends in media and technology, consumer behaviour has changed a lot. Communication has gone from one way to two-way. From push to interactive. People are more than ever socially involved in the decision-making process of organizations through social media like facebook, twitter and google +. It is clear that new times require a new approach. Consequently, brand management, as a trendsensitive profession, has to adapt to this new situation. Despite all conventional communication efforts, people are constantly talking about the brands which are produced within an organization. These people are both inside and outside the companys walls and they have conversations. Current employees and future employees. Satisfied and unsatisfied people. In real life or using social media, they spread their Each and one of these brands will need a brand manager who will have to get the right brand

ideas, their remarks, their frustrations about people, situations and brands. Moreover, they are not afraid of expressing their emotions and feelings online. As other people are listening to them, they have - without often knowing it - an influence on each other. The world seems to have changed a lot in a small period of time, and this might look scary, but it creates opportunities as well. Like all organizations,

Alken-Maes has to adapt and to change its strategy in order to catch the right fish for the right job (brand manager) in todays labour market.

Fans & Followers have power Becoming a facebook fan, a twitter follower or joining ones google circle. Different ways of expressing your interest in a certain product, service, social cause, organization. Same goes for a career or job as well!! Employer branding and brand management in general has clearly changed from a monologue to a conversational issue. (Ryan Estis and associates) It is important to understand that this evolution (or revolution) has its effect on the decision making process regarding brands en more specifically on the direction that brand managers want to push their brands. have the exclusive rights on the future of the brands! They no longer Today, the

consumers, as the most important brand ambassadors, can enforce the direction in which the brand wants to go, simply by confirming (by Liking, by Following, by joining a social group, etc.) or rejecting (Unliking, Unfollowing, or worse writing negative comments on public fora). The conclusion of all this is - in my opinion - that whoever the future brand manager of a certain Alken-Maes product may be, he or she will have to find a way to deal with the brand ambassadors (fans, followers, etc.) and their wishes. Moreover, there is a more than reasonable chance that the future brand manager is already between these ambassadors! Afterall, the best future employees are those consumers who are most involved in the life of a brand. They have a natural identification and loyalty towards the brand and are most likely to defend the brand when it comes to difficulties. My conclusion is that each brand within the brand portfolio of AlkenMaes could possibly find its future brand manager within the existing, or future group of brand ambassadors.

Find the most influence people of a brand. A natural leader. A voice thats being heard and recognized by the

followers. A brand evangelist who is able to create a coherent, consequent

and relevant story for the ambassadors. But also a person whos task it is to listen and to detect new arising questions, remarks, trends, challenges, possible threats, etc. organization or brand. coming from both the inside or the outside of the Afterall, tomorrows succesful brands will have to

seek an active engagement with their users and will therefore have to mix among the consumers.(society of digital agencies) http://www.slideshare.net/sodaspeaks/society-of-digital-agenciessoda-2011-digital-marketing-outlook

More concretely, I suggest the following plan which consists in 5 steps: 1. Installation of a general rule: Come work for us, If you like us (read: they have to literally like us, before they get a chance to enter a selection procedure) 2. As all products within the brand portfolio of Alken-Maes are FMCG, there should be a consistent presence of all brands on social media, respecting the unique background and identity of each brand (every brand should have its own vision and strategy). 3.Defining the brand ambassadors (fans, followers, correspondents through mail, etc.) 4.Looking for the real lovers / the passionate people among these ambassadors. The people that would do unreasonable things to get

closer to the brand. In order to reach this goal the company could set up a social game or challenge for their followers through which they can more easily distinguish the best candidates from the others. 5.Reward the people that are willing to spend a lot of time and energy in participating the brands games, challenges or projects. ultimate collaboration in making the brand better. 6.Organize evaluation and possible recruitment moments with your top brand ambassadors. new ideas and visions. Maintain an open atmosphere and give space to Offer them the

Concrete example for the brand Maes: op zoek naar de Maes Master Makker (same strategy could be applicable for the other brands of the portfolio as well, respecting ofcourse their own strategy and culture) : We create a game / quest to find the most involved and talented people for the job of brand manager for the brand Maes. The game consists in creating their own Maes Master Project. The task they will have to fullfil is to write a business/organization plan on how to gather as much people as possible around one certain Maes project (this could be a party, but also a social project, or other ideas). The 10 best plans (evaluated by a jury) get to be executed.

Maten Makkers Masters Maes

1.Send out a communication to all existing brand ambassadors (existing fans, followers, mail correspondants, etc.) that they can participate a total new game and that they can possibly win lots of beautiful prizes. Do not yet speak about a possible job as reward. You might attract perhaps too much of one kind (gold seekers). 2.People who chose to enter the competition get a few basic multiple choice-questions to distinguish the serious candidates from the others. All participants receive a small prize (f.e. a discount next time they buy Maes) , but an announcement should be made that much bigger prizes are awaiting them if they continue the race. 3.All participants continuing the race get a briefing on the objective of their mission (gathering people around a project and creating as much buzz as possible). An announcement is made specifying that the 10 best projects get to be executed in reality, and that large budgets for the implementation of the plans will be at their disposal. 4.The 10 best plans are being selected. They get: a mentor (someone inside the company) doing the follow-up. A budget they can spend. All

company communication and distribution tools at their disposal. A number of evaluation moments before a jury. A final presentation before the jury after the projects have taken place. Not only the quantity but also the quality of the contacts they gathered is considered. An election by the brand ambassadors (fans, followers). 5.The project that gets the highes overall score (jury & brand ambassadors election - different criteria have to be considered) wins the game. The winner gets a beautiful prize, the title of Master Makker, with the recognition of the brand ambassadors (fame!) and ofcourse the job. The other 9 candidates get a serious lead as well in possible further selection procedures as well...

Ofcourse this is only an example of how things could be organized if we take the idea of a social game into consideration. However, the ultimate goal is to maintain and to engage the existing brand ambassadors, and to find new ambassadors as well. My conclusion is that this social approach does the following things:

1.It powers talent communities ( cfr. Brett Minchington) 2.It involves and engages the existing and future brand ambassadors and pulls these people towards the brand. 3.An own dynamism is created. People will attract other people. 4.New stories will be written for your brand. New oppotunities will be discovered. For free! The only thing it will cost the compagny is respect towards those people who carry your brand out every day. Sustainability and consistence are the key to succes. 5.The brand adds a new dimension to the brand perception: the perception of the brand as a future employer is highlighted.