As part of my activities as the Program Director for the MSc in Marketing at Henley Business School was to reconnect with some of our Alumni that have graduated from the Program and that now work in different areas of Marketing. The idea was to give current students some insights on the different functions of Marketing management. I started this by interviewing Kate MacQuillan, who is now a European Brand Manager at Kellogg’s, the cereal company. Interestingly I also spent a few years in Kellogg’s after graduating from my undergraduate degree, so many of the things that she mentioned were already familiar to me, and reminded me of the time I spent in this company.
Thank you, Kate, for sparing some time to share your experience, and for providing valuable tips to students looking to build a career within brand management. Below the transcript of the interview:
Rodrigo PEREZ VEGA
Thank you again for sparing some time to talk to us this morning. I know Kate because she did a Master’s programme a couple of years ago. And the only thing that I will say now is that now she’s working as a European brand manager at killer company. And today, she will be sharing some insights about what exactly she does in her role, how she got there, so hopefully, you will find this useful, guys. So over to you, Kate. Yes,
Kate MacQuillan
Grace Thanks Rodrigo. And hi to everyone. I know it’s kind of bit weird doing everything virtually these days. But it’s a it’s lovely to kind of reconnect with Henley business school after all these years. So yeah, I have a brand manager in the Kellogg’s company. And going back basically to my education is probably easier to to bring you on that journey. I first did an undergraduate in Food Innovation in, in Dublin in the DI T. And through that degree, I kind of figured out that science really wasn’t my passion. And I didn’t want to be in a lab based role. So with that, I enrolled into Henley Business School in 2016, graduated in 2017. And I was lucky lucky to secure a job really Kellogg’s, where I was able to merge the the two role or the two undergraduate degrees and in terms of food science and brand management, and ended up in an innovation role back in 2017.
Rodrigo PEREZ VEGA
So sorry, to interrupt, I think it’s a great it’s a great fits like what you say that you have the like food industry background. Yeah, marketing, I think was was a, an ideal. And they saw a lot of potential from having both elements.
Kate MacQuillan
I would say it was pure fluke, I really wanted to get a job within the food industry. But I didn’t really have the marketing background work experience when I was applying for marketing roles. It was it was really pure chance that there was an innovation and brand management role in in Kellogg’s, and there was a point where I was looking for jobs, and I was kind of thinking, you know, I’m either going to have to give up on the food marketing and just do kind of tourism marketing or kind of any foot in the door that I could get, or I was thinking maybe I’m gonna have to go back and do these sinespace roles, and then kind of have a foot in the door in a food company and then be able to merge out to kind of more marketing business end of it. So I was very, very, very lucky to end up getting the role in in catalogues, but I’m here, you’re three years this November, which is crazy, because time is just flying. It’s blinking before my eyes both and you know, it’s a great, it’s a great place to work. And I’ve been really, really enjoying it. And I’ve been looking to have two, two roles so far. So I thought so, slides to kind of bring you guys on the journey of what I do and what I do day to day, really. And so the first slide I have is kind of you know, bossy brown managers do because it’s a question that I get asked a lot of times, and sometimes I find it hard to kind of quickly summarise exactly what it what it is that I do, because No two days are really the same. And it’s a bit of a cliche to say that but in my opinion, it is true, you know, the, the environment is really fast paced, and definitely working from home has increased this but overall being a brand manager means I got a look into so many different departments within within Kellogg’s, which I really, really enjoy. And so I do like to think of my role as kind of a guardian so if you’ve seen the movie Guardians of the Galaxy, kind of think about a little bit like that. So and as a European brand manager, you know, I’m in a position where I’m a gatekeeper for you know, an incredible iconic brand like Kellogg’s and some of which are some brands are decades old, and they’re still very much so loved by and loved by consumers and it’s our job to kind of really protect the purpose and the integrity and then also the vision of the brand. Before I kind of go on maybe I should just mention I’m currently knighted the European brand manager for WK Kellogg which is a granola brand and it’s a new new brand to the to the Kellogg’s portfolio it’s only about three years old but other brands like crunchy nose is four years old. I think Cocoa Puffs is about 60 cornflakes itself is like the the finding product of catalogues which is like 100 and something 100 and 116 years or something like that, which is crazy to think about these brands have been and in the world for so so long. And as a European brand manager and you know, every day I’m talking to my colleagues and across Europe, which is great. I’m also a huge amount of my role hasn’t changed and from working from home because I was dialling into calls to kind of Nicole in, in Hungary or Sylvia in Italy. So you know, it’s all and all kind of similar working from home, but it’s every day, across Europe, I get to kind of help make decisions that will impact Thai consumers are going to see the brand that I work on, be that kind of a new packaging design or a piece of digital communications, or even aligning to a local sponsorship, and that we’re going to do so as kind of a gatekeeper of the brands. And we get to use things like our key brawn tools, which is like our equity two, as a lens to which and kind of help us look at any activity or comms to make sure that they align with our, with our brand strategy.
So I said earlier that the days can be varied and it is true. And you know, for example, my main deliverable this week is business performance review on an innovation that launched in in January. And I’ll bring our key stakeholders along and on the journey and make sure that everyone understands how the performance of the brand is doing and what we can do to to further enhance it. But then other weeks, I can be more focused on things like communications. So recently enough, I just finished our communications brief for 21 and briefed our creative agencies and they’re coming back to us this week, which I’m really excited to see and kind of what their thoughts are, for 2021. I think my favourite part of my role is this, this creative side. And I much prefer as van crunching numbers and understand the performance of things is going but you also do get that kind of really weird sense of pride when you see an ad that you’ve worked on at in the wild. And it’s such a lovely feeling because you know yourself how much work has gone into it. But as a consumer walks by it, they may not even notice it Plus, you know, it’s part and parcel of of doing activations like this, which is which is cool. So this is kind of an example of what I’ve worked on this year. I don’t know if you’ve seen and any of any of the ads themselves, but and we had a huge out of home strategy for the year, which obviously in COVID world has has not materialised to be the best strategy. And because it was the one year that people were going to be at home or not either. But it was great to be able to develop, you know, really cool ads and to kind of reintroduce the brand that I worked for and get it in the front of mind for consumers. And then I got to work on a TV ad for WK Kellogg by kids, which is a fantastic brand that has been developed with kids at the at the core, you know, they’ve helped us with the food development with kind of pop culture is go in what flavours go in, what the packaging design looks like. And even the ad itself like the the robot, and they’re on screen was drawn by the creative directors, seven year old daughter. So you know, kids have really helped us throughout the whole invasion, which is, which is really cool. And then I said earlier that my first role was an assistant brand manager and role and I got to work on the launch of white chocolate Cocoa Puffs and crave dark chocolate. And I’m really grateful, as I mentioned to be able to merge both of my undergraduate and postgraduate degrees into one. And it gave me an insight into how Kellogg’s kind of functions as a business. But by doing an innovation, it means that you really kind of collaborate with so many people like from food development, from nutrition, supply chain, quality finance, I could really go on there are so many people involved in an innovation. And so when you see it, you’re kind of final product on shelf, there’s probably about 6070 people minimum who have helped to get it there, which is and you know, I’m the type of person that I think I get my best work when I’m working with a team and that kind of sense of a kind of team raw team morale as well. So innovation was great kind of foot in the door to not only just learn about catalogues, but to kind of understand how things get done in businesses.
Rodrigo PEREZ VEGA
And I think I think you touched on a very interesting point that you said that you were interacting, not only kind of with when you were in this innovation role, not only kind of with marketing people, but people from like, supply chain that they have to prepare like forecasting and all this kind of thing and how they buy raw materials I’m thinking and then but also like you said like people like nutritionists, and other than that, so I don’t know, I guess sometimes students they feel like okay, I’m going to be working in marketing only and then just hang out with these creative agencies that I get three depends on the industry and all the different stakeholders and that’s why I guess it’s what is important to Learn how to work in teams. Right? And also to have like a kind of a broader view and not only focus Yeah, I want to do TBS all the time, or I want to do that, because you will have to deal with these other people that have different mindsets and are kind of thinking of their own priorities. I don’t know.
Kate MacQuillan
Exactly, no, you’re totally right. And I guess what, what I find out what other brand managers find, you know, we work in kind of a tunnel vision view of Okay, my brand is Wk, Kellogg and I need to do everything that’s in my power to and you know, help the performance of the brand or just get the most out of the brand. And whereas, you know, my colleague in finance isn’t working with a WK Kellogg tunnel vision view, they work with the portfolio in mind. So it’s really in, like, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s really interesting to be able to work with such a collaborative kind of frame of mind, but also, you know, you have to kind of work on negotiating kind of timelines, you know, if I need something really urgently, and someone in finance, and is also working on something urgently, you know, we have to kind of meet in the middle and find find something that will kind of help us both achieve what we need to get done. But um, yeah, it’s a huge part of my role is, is just really being a bridge from from the, from the brand team to any other department and in the business, and then taking the information that I’ve gotten and kind of digesting it, and probably breaking it down, and kind of a shorter, condensed version, I’m bringing our stakeholders like my brand director, or the Vice President, or vice president for for the marketing department. Bring them on the journey with us, too. So yeah, it’s hugely, hugely collaborative.
Rodrigo PEREZ VEGA
Yeah, sorry to interrupt, I thought that was
Kate MacQuillan
Joseph feel, and other things that we can end up doing is kind of, again, collaborating with our Insights Team. So what they’ll do is they’ll kind of break down consumer research and and they’ll also follow trends to basically ensure that our launches are set up for success. So we do a huge amount of testing in in KalEl cycle tester concept. And before it kind of goes into the plant for, for development in terms of an innovation and then during the innovation process, we’ll we’ll create the food and we’ll test it with consumers as well basically get their read on it. And we’ll also test like TV ads and kind of ad phone posters, basically, just to ensure that the ad is set up for success, and it’s achieving the objective of the ad had in mind basically,
Rodrigo PEREZ VEGA
yeah, because it costs a lot of money.
Kate MacQuillan
Yes, you
want to make sure that the investment that you’re going to put behind is is basically going to be a success and it doesn’t always work and that’s what the The great thing about consumer research is that means that you can kind of take a step back and go go back and tweak it before you meet the the kind of the immediate deadline because once you get to that deadline, you have to put something out on air and you want it to be the very best job that you can create. So yeah, it’s great, it’s great to be in the position to be able to test a lot of our and our kind of odds and concepts with consumers. And I’m coming to the end so basically that’s what we’ll do is we’ll tell you where to turn all those insights like from in market data, consumer research everything into a strategy and it’s what we call a brand growth plan. And and it simply just shows the plan or the path that the brand is going to take in order to achieve and success so the prep for these plans actually being kicked off now and we will debrief our stakeholders in December pretty much before Christmas so that everyone goes off on Christmas break and comes back on is kind of clear and clear and aligned on kind of the brand and strategy heading into the new year. And and then I thought and you mentioned you know giving advice to the students in in in Henley at the moment and you know, it’s a it’s a mad mad year for for everything really and I know the thought of kind of career prospects is a little bit daunting but uh you know there there is definitely rules out there. I would say try not to try not to get too worried. And when I thought about this Rodrigo, what I did was I thought back to when I was in Henley Business School, especially around this time when there’s a huge amount of kind of noise about graduate programmes and stuff like that. And I kind of have three pieces of advice that I wish I kind of had heard basically when when I was doing my and my master’s but number one, I graduate programme is not the be all or end all like it’s a great it’s a great opportunity and it’s a great foot in the door. But I spent a huge amount of time, you know, in every application and every kind of online test and in the end it didn’t materialise for me and it was fine for it to not materialise for me, you know There are several roles in most companies. So I would just say to the students, you know, don’t put too much pressure on yourself to secure grad programmes. They really like their grades, but they’re really not the be all or
Rodrigo PEREZ VEGA
the only thing. Yeah, exactly. Yeah,
Kate MacQuillan
exactly. There’s so much out there and it beyond the grasp beyond the grad programme, and don’t worry, we’ll find a role and you will find a job and so if you’re kind of thinking or overthinking about the the Graduate Programme kind of recruitment process, at the moment, just kind of take a step back reflect and just realise that there’s, there’s a lot more out there as well. The other thing that I am kind of, kind of in one way Wish I kind of dug a little bit deeper was really researching the industry that I wanted to go into, like, I guess what my food science degree behind me I, I knew I probably wanted to be into, like the the fmcg kind of industry. But at the same time, I was kind of blinkers and I didn’t think of any other kind of industry there, you know, the automobile, and creative side of that world is fascinating. And they have massive budgets as well. So and, you know, start thinking about, like, the different areas that you could go into is this media agencies, is it a creative agency, in terms of like a key account manager, there’s so many kind of routes for your marketing masters can bring you. So you know, just spend the time when you’re actually secure in education to just really kind of deep dive on investigate a little bit. And then lastly, just don’t be afraid to try job, you know, the job that you get when you graduate after university is not going to be the job, but you kind of retire 65 or whenever it is, you know, if and if you don’t try, you won’t know. And I had I was looking for I was doing my undergraduate degree to do kind of to and very heavy foods and role selecting quality assurance on food developments and doing those roles it was held because I really didn’t enjoy it both. And it taught me a lot of where I didn’t want to go. So you know, just don’t be afraid to try the roles and you may end up loving it. And that’s great. But if you don’t try, you’ll never know. So I would just say don’t be afraid to try new jobs a
Rodrigo PEREZ VEGA
great, great, great, great piece of advice. Thank you. Thank you, Kate. I had a question while you were saying all this and finished about this that you have the food industry of food marketing background and the marketing one do you uh maybe some students are asking themselves do I need to have like this food background to be able to work in in the marketing team in Kellogg’s, like, do all the people or everyone has this this kind of very special mix, or
Kate MacQuillan
I’d say it is beneficial, but it’s not a requirement. So you know, there’s people who have come from like all walks of life really in the brand management role. And in Kellogg’s, I think of one of the brand managers and he was a teacher in South Korea up until about like five or six years ago and he went off and he did a business Master’s in marketing and he’s a marketing manager for for crunchy nut which is one of the biggest brands in the UK. I think it is the biggest brand in the UK. So you know, there there’s benefits, of course the popping kind of previous work experience, but it’s it’s 100% not the not the beholder endl to have a you know, they’re they’re looking for people who can add value and into the marketing department. And if you can bring experience from a different sector or a different industry, you know, they may take that and ahead of someone else who has kind of fmcg experience as well.
Rodrigo PEREZ VEGA
Great. Well, thank you. Thank you again, Kate. And we’ll stop recording now.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai