Brand Marketing interview prep.

Behavioural questions to expect

1. Walk me through your CV.
2. Tell me about a brand or launch where you owned a measurable commercial outcome.
3. Why CPG brand management - vs tech product, consulting, agency strategy, or DTC?
4. Why this category - food vs beverage vs snacks vs HPC?
5. Why the firm?
6. What is your read on our brand portfolio and recent performance?
7. How would you describe our category position and channel mix?
8. Walk me through how you would diagnose a brand losing share in a flat category.

Technical concepts to master

• Brand equity + positioning

  Positioning statement · Brand equity pyramid (Keller / CBBE) · Distinctive brand assets · Brand-health tracking · Brand architecture

• Consumer + shopper insight

  Jobs-to-be-done (JTBD) · Occasions + U&A (Usage & Attitudes) · Segmentation · Shopper insight + path-to-purchase · Concept testing + BASES

• Innovation + renovation pipeline

  Renovation vs innovation vs disruption · Stage-gate process · Year-1 launch forecast · Launch readiness + 5C / 6C checklist · Post-launch read + kill/nurture/scale

• Trade + channel reality

  Channel mix in CPG · Joint business planning (JBP) · Hard discount + private label · Trade promotion + ROI · Retailer media + shopper marketing

Practical drills

• Your brand was 18.5% value share last year and is 17.1% this year in a category growing 2%. Volume is down 3% but NSV is flat. Walk through the diagnosis and the first three moves you would make.
• You are the new brand manager for a 30-year-old heritage brand that has been losing relevance with under-35 consumers for five years. Walk through how you would reposition it.
• Your brand is launching a new SKU into a $2B category. BASES top-2-box purchase intent is 28% (category benchmark 22%). The plan is 60% ACV at launch, $4.99 price, 8oz pack. Walk through your year-1 forecast and launch plan.

Smart-question anchors

• Brand portfolio + power brands - which brands are core, which are growth, which are tail
• Innovation engine - stage-gate maturity + recent launches + 3-year pipeline visibility
• Channel mix + retailer reality - hard-discount + private-label exposure, e-commerce + retailer-media maturity
• Marketing organisation - global / regional / local brand split, where brand managers actually own the P&L
• Brand-builder culture - training, apprenticeship, general-manager career path

Sourced from

Kantar Worldpanel + Circana + NielsenIQ - CPG measurement standards · Ehrenberg-Bass Institute - How Brands Grow (Byron Sharp) · BASES (NielsenIQ Innovation) - concept testing + launch forecasting · Keller - Customer-Based Brand Equity (CBBE) Pyramid · MBA brand-management interview prep + practitioner guides (Vault, Management Consulted, RocketBlocks, Mergers & Inquisitions CPG / brand sections)