Marketing Manager

Most of the organizations actually prefer the individuals to go through a sales stint of two to three years before they ask them to join their marketing teams. However, there are a few where one can directly join the marketing team as a fresher. For a fresher, the compensation ranges from Rs.2 Lakhs to Rs. 6 Lakhs per annum. By the time the individual reached mid level, the salaries too range from anywhere between Rs.8 Lakhs to Rs.20 Lakhs. In senior levels the salaries can extend even beyond Rs.40 Lakhs per annum.

There have been quite a few famous marketing professionals in the world, some in India as well. Hindustan Unilever has been famous for giving the Indian corporates a good number of marketing managers. M.S. (Vindi) Banga and Nitin Paranjape are a few well known marketing managers from Hindustan Unilevers.

M.S.(Vindi) Banga: He graduate from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi in 1975 and did BTech degree in Mechanical Engineering. From Delhi he moved to Ahmedabad to study at the Indian Institute of Management (IIM-A). He joined Hindustan Unilever thereafter and after marketing stints in many different categories within the company, he was elected the CEO of Hindustan Unilever. Under his leadership, the company launched many new products.

Nitin Paranjpe: Mr. Paranjpe completed his bachelors Degree in Engineering (Mechanical) and then did MBA in Marketing from JBIMS, Mumbai. Thereafter he joined Hindustan Unilever as a Management Trainee in 1987. In his early years in the Company, Mr. Paranjpe worked as Area Sales Manager - Detergents and then Product Manager - Detergents. In April 1996, he became the Branch Manager - Chennai and in February 1999 he was appointed as a member of the Project Millennium Team.

In 2000, he moved to Unilever London, and was involved in a review of the organization structure. During 2001, he was an Executive Assistant to the Chairman and Executive Committee in Unilever London.

On his return to India in 2002, Mr. Paranjpe became the Category Head - Fabric Wash and Regional Brand Director (Asia) for several Laundry and Household Cleaning (HHC) brands. In 2004, he became Vice President - Home Care (Laundry & HHC) India, responsible for the Home Care business. He was appointed as the Executive Director for the Home & Personal Care business in March 2006.

Mr. Paranjpe was appointed as the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of the Company in April 2008. He is also an Executive Vice President of Unilever Companies in South Asia.

The marketing managers’ day is usually quite hectic with lots of meetings. A typical day would start early in the morning with emails from the internal production teams, own supervising managers and vendors. Once the marketing manager reaches office, she usually goes for a brief meeting with her supervising manager.

Most part of the day then is spent in preparing work briefs for various vendors and agencies, including advertising agencies, market research agencies etc. Once she gets any new Market research report from the agency, or gets new creatives from the advertising agencies then she prepares her own feedback and forwards the same to her supervising manager.

A critical part of the marketing managers’ work is to remain in touch with the customers and keep updating about his/her concerns. She has to continuously keep meeting customers to fine tune her own understanding of their needs.

In case you think that Marketing Manager is not the right career fit, then you should explore other career options available on our portal. In any case before deciding about one's career choice one must undertake Aptitude Testing and Personality Testing to find one's inherent strength and choose one's career accordingly.

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