To print a new design - how hard can it be?

When a new design is to be printed at the first time we must be sure that the design is correct and that all the colors are perfect. You might think, how hard can it be? But yes, it can actually be pretty tricky. Today I have been at a printing house for the whole day to look after one new design we are about to launch. When you have been standing at the printing-table and looking at different shades of magenta (red) for one hour or more, you cannot see the difference any longer. Or if the biscuit at the design has the perfect color so it looks genuine. It is trickier than you think… but fun!

Orkla Growth Award

Last week I attended the ceremony of Orkla Growth Award in Oslo. This event is arranged once every year and it is a really fun evening. You meet colleagues from all over the world while Orkla is nominating companies (within Orkla Brands) that have done well throughout the past year. The categories can be everything from best advertising, to best growth innovation, to best packaging, to best new launch, to best promotion campaign to the biggest price “Grand Price” (grand slam). Grand Price is the most prestige to win and this year Procordia won it. That means that they have done well all over, that they have had a high standard in general in every part they have done. Last year OLW won the desirable price especially for its success with “fredagsmys”. Next year I hope it will be another company…

Shoot pictures!

Last Thursday I spent the day with a photographer taking new pictures to one of our products. That was fun and really interesting. It is so much precision in taking good pictures and that takes time, oh lord! To be sure that you get a great picture from the exact right angel, with the best possible light and the perfect proposition, you must take so many optional pictures until you finally you get the right one. You have to be patient! Before this session I understood that being a photographer included precision, but to see it this close gave the work of photographer another dimensions. I am even more fascinated of it now.

To be a Project Manager

When working as a brand manager your job includes being a project manager. In Orkla you have to manage different projects, everything from developing brand new products to creating campaigns within your portfolio of brands.

To run a project is very fun but in the same time rather tricky. You work with different divisions of the organisation and must be able to understand opposite interests and interconnect them. As a leader of a project you cannot understand every part. For example, I am not educated in how a machine creating cartons is built up, how to estimate time needed for washing a huge dough mixer, or which aroma from which supplier that is the most suitable for a specific cookie-recipes. That is why a group of people with different specialities is set up together.

As a project manager you cannot have control over every part of the project. That is quite frustrating in the beginning, not being able to understand and control each element of a project that you are responsible for, but you learn over time. You also get to know the team members better and better (of course) and different ways to work together, which is the funniest part!

Vacation-time!

Even if I love my job it is so nice with holiday! Just to relax and do nothing, travel, read a great book, eat and sleep well, and to be with family and friends. That is a great vacation for me! I will soon start my last week of holiday out of three. It is a great feeling!

In the middle of the summer, as it is right now, the most of us in Sweden are on vacation. When we all return in the beginning of August it will be high tempo as usual again. That will be fun but it nice to have some days off and recover before that. We will then start to realize all the plans we have set up for the rest of 2011.

Just before the holiday the sales- and marketing department went to a ranch just outside Stockholm to build up these plans. We discussed the best strategies for each segment, brand and customer, and how to consolidate the plans across marketing and sales, to act as one unified sector. We all must work together and stay focused to be able to continue as a market leader within our category.

At the picture above you see the sales- and marketing department at Göteborgs Kex. The picture is taken after a long day of planning the upcoming period, a fun, demanding and necessary action. We all must know which path we are going, our common goal. Without knowing where we are heading our competitors will eat us up.

Happy holiday!

To stretch a brand into other categories?

Ballerina is Sweden’s biggest brand within biscuits. Over 90 % of Sweden’s population knows what Ballerina is. That is cool! How many marketers are privileged to work with such big brand? Right now, I am one of them!

But that is not the reason why I write today. I will write and tell you about our big launch this week, McFlurry Ballerina Kladdkaka. We have taken the step into the ice-cream category, again. We have actually been there once before when we launched a sandwich-like Ballerina ice-cream for some years ago, but this is something different! We have developed small cookie-crunches and a delicious chocolate sauce to swirl into and on top of the soft ice-cream to get the perfect taste of Ballerina Kladdkaka. It taste so good, you must try it!

The first responses we have got are really good, the consumers love it. McFlurry Ballerina Kladdkaka will be sold the whole summer at McDonalds and I personally think is going to be a summer favourite. Of course, the weather is going to affect consumers’ hunger for ice-cream, but we all are longing for a sunny summer so lets cross our fingers.

The reason why I tell you this is not to promote McFlurry Ballerina Kladdkaka (of course, I will not be sad if you try it ;)). It is the fascinating part of how much a brand can be stretched, both within the same category but also into new areas. Biscuits and ice-cream are categories that are not far apart but how long can a brand be stretched without loosing its core and spoil its brand value?

To more well-known a brand is the easier to stretch it. For example, car-brands are selling clothes, chocolate-brands are selling nuts, bread-brand are selling cereals or when clothing-brands are selling glasses – is it too much? Most often it is not, but we as marketers must be aware. If we stretch a brand too long consumers will forget what the brand is famous for in the first place and it will loose status. However, Ballerina is such a strong brand and who knows, maybe you will se it in another category ahead….

I am a confectioner?

Imagine to be able to decide what kind of cookies that will be instores and how they should taste, that is my job! As a brand manager within Orkla that is actually the truth. You and your project team decide how the products will taste and look like. Of course, there must be a reflected reserach behind it and as a project leader you must ensure that the product will be attractive and desired for consumers.

So as a brand manager at Göteborgs Kex, I am almost a confectioner or a baker. Even if I do not actually bake the cookies, I have great influence on taste and look of them. That is a big different from many other international companies. As a brand manager in our corporate group you are close to the market and can actually develop and customize products aimed for the local consumer. And the feeling of seeing the products your team have developed instores is absolutely faboulous!

Are you missing out?

When working as a brand manager you need to know a little of everything. In the beginning of this year we launched new biscuits for kids. The biscuits taste raspberry and are baked with natural ingridients and fruitjuice. The name of the biscuits is Brago Bondgårdskex and they have the shape of different farmer-animals. They are really cute and taste wonderful if you ask me. They are not that sweet so you can eat many of them.

To spread the news of the biscuits we have for the first time built an app to iPhone. This is Orklas’s first app. You must try it, it is soo cute!!! Just click in at apple.com or at the link below and download it for free. It works with iPhone 3, iPhone 4 och iPad. Soon you will have a pedagogical app designed for kids between 2-5 years. Enjoy!

http://www.mynewsdesk.com/se/pressroom/goteborgskex/pressrelease/view/nya-brago-bondgaardskex-med-app-594442?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=Alert&utm_content=pressrelease

A tasteful job

Today I attended a meeting called “taste-testing Ballerina”, what a fabulous job I got ;)

Conference

In the middle of January we stayed at Såstaholm Conference Centre, located just outside Stockholm, for a few days. Our entire selling-force gathered up to prepare the first selling-period of 2011.

The first day was packed with information from the management and the marketing departments. We had teamwork-activities when we simulated being actors, actresses and directors - we made commercials! It was fun and the activities were wrapped up by a great dinner in the gorgeous circus-room at Såstaholm. Then, I guess we all fell asleep pretty fast after a long and intense day.

The second day started with lectures by the key account managers, followed by an education in a new datasystem. The promotion- and category managers gave input and the day also ended with a lovely dinner. The food was fabulous! A great conference was to an end...