Decent Marketing

Campbell Soup Job Opening

Campbell Soup is looking for a Senior Manager of Integrated Marketing.  The job involves:

• Providing the category with a holistic vision of integrated marketing for planning and execution that utilizes traditional consumer promotion and alternate marketing strategies and tactics that work synergistically with other marketing elements to achieve brand objectives. 
• Acting as key point of contact for the development of innovative integrated marketing activities and collaborating with brand managers and key business partners, both internally and externally, to achieve a consistent "One Voice" throughout the marketing mix to the consumer.
• Providing a category-wide view to business leaders for equity and scale optimization. 

The job requires a minimum of a B.S., with an M.B.A. or M.S. desired, as well as 5-7 years of relevant experience.  Required skills include leadership, problem solving, analytical skills, negotiating capabiliity, organizational skills and technical competence.

If you're interested, and qualified, you can email annmarie_gulian@campbellsoup.com.  As always, please do not reach out to her if you don't have the type of experience described above -- otherwise recruiters will stop reaching out to me and I won't be able to share these job openings with you.   

Back From Hiatus

Sorry for the short hiatus.  I wish I could say I had been on a lovely summer vacation somewhere with my family.  Instead, I had ANOTHER back surgery last Monday, the 13th, and am once again recovering.  If this one isn't the charm, then screw it.

A Name By Another Name Just Doesn't Smell (or Sell) More Sweet

What is with the strange naming affliction spreading across the nation like a bad flu epidemic?

We have this season's renaming of the major league baseball team the Anaheim Angels. What are they now -- the Anaheim Angels of Los Angeles? Or is it the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim? Or the Anaheim Angeles? Or is it the -- wait a minute, who cares. As if a name change will fix any problems they may have, on the field or off. And Kentucky Fried Chicken, has recently decided it's actually okay to say the words rather than just "KFC". They're renaming themselves to their original name. Perhaps they've been in therapy and have decided to love themselves for who they really are.

And finally, the most egregiously annoying of all, the combo name game happening in all of the entertainment weeklies and news shows. It started with Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez ("Bennifer"), then moved to Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie ("Brangelina") and now I'm hearing them all talking about "TomKat" (Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes). I can just see it now -- any pairing of people or things will now require one of those silly names. Perhaps on "The Today Show", Matt Lauer and Katie Couric will become "Matie" and peanut butter will henceforth be called "peabutt". I hold out hope that the pharmaceutical industry can come up with a naming flu shot quickly, so that we can all get better soon.

Vote Or Die. (Not really.)

Today, Wed. June 8th, is the last day to vote for Decent Marketing as MarketingSherpa's best individual advertising/marketing/pr blog of 2005.  If you like to vote, or like Decent Marketing, or like spending time doing things unrelated to your actual job responsibilities, please go here immediately.  Thank you.

Cue the Violins

As many of you know, I had surgery in April.  (A lumbar laminectomy, for those of you who've been trained in the dark arts of medicine and know what that is.)  It didn't work, so now I'm waiting to find out whether they have to sharpen up the Ginsu knives and go digging around my spinal cord yet again.  I just want to apologize to you guys for my lackluster posting as of late. 

I hate to even bring this up, because I really don't like posting about my personal life on this blog.  It's called "Decent Marketing" after all, not "Katherine's Crappy Spine" or "What Katherine Ate For Breakfast Yesterday".  I  really do love this blog and so very much appreciate all the people who read it.  This means you.  I hope you'll hang in there with me.

Dunkin Donuts is Out to Get Me: Commuterrant

This rant about ordering coffee at Dunkin Donuts by Ellen over at Commuterrant made me laugh: Commuterrant: Dunkin Donuts is Out to Get Me.

Now, getting an iced coffee at my neighborhood Dunkin Donuts has become an unpleasant chore. I always have to say, "skim milk and sugar...the powdered sugar, not the liquid. Not powdered as in confectioners like on the powdered donuts, but granulated. Do you know what I mean? Please, no liquid sugar. I like my sugar chewable." There's just no graceful way to say it.

It can be so frustrating when sales and service people show such little regard for customers' wants and needs. We get so used to being ignored that we become almost clinically paranoid. I love the visual of Ellen peering over the counter at Dunkin' Donuts, straining to see whether they're getting her coffee order right. I can just imagine her heart rate going up, her eyes darting back and forth, her mind racing ...

Don't even try to act like this hasn't happened to you, because you know it has. We all have that one store, restaurant or service organization where we're absolutely convinced they're going to screw us. What's yours?