Marketing careers besides brand management or consultant?

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Hi everyone,
I know I want to work in Marketing, but I'm wondering what other career paths are there besides Brand Management or Consulting? Are these the two most popular? If so, I wonder if it's good to want to do the "normal" route or if the competition will be too high (at least when I'm trying to get into the program - they may not want 10 brand-management hopefuls).

What do you think?
Last edited by cmajedi on Sun Jul 08, 2012 2:58 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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by Jim@StratusPrep » Sun Jul 08, 2012 4:44 pm
There are tons of career paths, what is it that you want to do in marketing? Creative? Product Management? Publicity? There are many ways to go...
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by cmajedi » Sun Jul 08, 2012 5:37 pm
Hi Jim,
I saw an amazing job called "Business Designer" at Ideo... they work with clients to help them design new services and products. They do the feasibilty analyis, research, and provide mock ups of the creative, sometimes all the way through to final execution. I'd love to work at an innovation firm in that role (I have electrical engineering/design experience, brand strategy experience, and services entrepreneurship experience).

I want to apply to NYU and Columbia (my family situation forces me to stay in NYC), but they don't seem as innovation focused as Stanford or Haas. Long story short, I don't want my goal (if it is to work in an innovation firm) to seem out of line with what they can offer.

SO I'm wondering if there are other marketing roles that could be a good stepping stone to the "Business Designer" position. In essence, to find a realistic short term goal that would line up with a longer term goal in Business Design at an innovation firm.

What do you think?

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by Jon@Admissionado » Mon Jul 09, 2012 1:01 am
Hmmmm , I get the feeling that Business Designer is Ideao's way or rebranding (and perhaps also re-concieveing) Business Consulting. Reading your description, it seems like what most consulting folks do (limited to certain tasks). I would say, besides just marketing, some sort of creativity would be a per-requisite (show yourself as the idea-man)
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by Jim@StratusPrep » Tue Jul 10, 2012 4:20 am
What might be good for you is try and get a position at at startup. This will help you get experience in all of the skills this job promotes, but you will get to lead the initiative. Also, you should be able to find a role in either NY or northern California as both have solid entrepreneurial communities. Try visiting the General Assembly in NY.
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by exceptionruled » Tue Jul 10, 2012 8:22 pm
Hi,

There are several product managers at the company I am currently interning at. It seems that product management is a good career path if you want to focus and develop expertise on developing marketing strategies for a particular product. You can also be involved in new business development, technology on making the product (introducing product additions/changes based on market demand), as well controlling the supply-chain for the product you are managing. Check out a product management career if there an industry you are particularly interested and would like to apply your marketing skills to learning about products in that industry.

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by albert001 » Thu Jul 12, 2012 1:38 am
To become a brand manager, candidates must possess MBA with specialization in marketing. They cannot become brand managers all of a sudden, rather they should begin their career as a member of the sales team and after two or three years of good performance in the sales team, they will be promoted as product manager or assistant brand manager on the basis of their performance and finally might be posted as brand managers. There might be heavy competition in posting a person as assistant brand manager or product manager from a team of sales personnel. Therefore, only a person showing good performance as a member of a sales team can climb in the ladder taking towards the position of brand manager.
brand management

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by cmajedi » Thu Jul 12, 2012 2:31 pm
albert001 wrote:To become a brand manager, candidates must possess MBA with specialization in marketing. They cannot become brand managers all of a sudden, rather they should begin their career as a member of the sales team and after two or three years of good performance in the sales team, they will be promoted as product manager or assistant brand manager on the basis of their performance and finally might be posted as brand managers. There might be heavy competition in posting a person as assistant brand manager or product manager from a team of sales personnel. Therefore, only a person showing good performance as a member of a sales team can climb in the ladder taking towards the position of brand manager.
brand management
Hi Albert thanks for your post. I know of people who have gone into Brand Management straight out of undergrad and also straight out of an MBA program. I'm sure sales is a great way to get a foot in the door, but I definitely don't think it's the only way. But thank you again for the post - Sales is another short term goal for me to consider.