In the Shoes of a Brand Manager

Confronting with large companies such as Rai and Parmalat and developing, for them and with them, brand strategies has been a stimulating opportunity for the students of the Brand Management class of the Marketing Management Master of Science. Professor Maria Carmela Ostillio after the awarding of the best projects, which took place in the presence of the managers of the two companies, expressed her happiness: "For the students, working on this kind of projects means applying what they have learned in class. They were free to choose methods of analysis and management tools to apply, as long as it was done with rigor," she says. "It's getting more and more difficult to confront with a rapidly changing world. Preparing them to face decisions in a fast and committed way and with an entrepreneurial spirit is what we ask them, and they always respond with great enthusiasm".

In the case of Parmalat, the winning group worked to strengthen and build a brand approach to sustainability. "With my group, we first thought of short-term solutions, exploiting elements that were already part of Parmalat's communication strategy, such as the character of Professor Strampalat. We suggested to print it on products together with conversation bubbles containing simple sustainability pills targeted to childrens, who could read them at breakfast time," explains Elisa Rodino, member of the winning group composed of Clarissa Albanesi, Marta Arenghi, Olga Cinotti, Giulia Marchesi, Emma Paradisi, Andrea Parini, Nicoletta Patarnello and Federico Zangrandi. "As for the long term, we propose the transformation of Parmalat into a BCorp - certified companies which not only aim at making profit, but also at generating a positive social and environmental impact for all its stakeholders".

The task of the teams who worked on the Rai brand was instead to develop the brand audit, that is, an analysis of the market positioning in terms of the perception that consumers have of the brand. "We created a behavioral segmentation, that is, based on the different preferences and habits of the Rai users, which allowed us to focus on three fundamental clusters for Rai," says Alessio Benedetti, who came first with his teammates Sofia Bianchini, Gaetano Giovannoli, Elisa Mainetti, Francesco Nascimbeni, Francesco Pausilli, Ciro Petrone, Emanuela Politelli, Francesco Righi and Serena Sgrò. "Working in such a large team, composed of 10 students, has been so positive and enriching, because we have had the opportunity to put into our projects so many different ideas and competences."