Sales and Marketing Blogs
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Feel free to post comments and come back to share more experiences with our sales & marketing graduates.
Eeek
Posted by Vicky on 23 Jun 08
Piles of invoices - eeek! Not my idea of a good time, but as the pile gets smaller and smaller the smile on my face is getting bigger and bigger.
Life After the Scheme
Posted by Sandra on 20 Nov 07
Just over two years after I first started on the graduate scheme and I'm now a fully fledged permanent member of the consumer marketing department. I'm currently managing three very complicated innovation projects on my brand. We have a new motto for our innovation: "fewer, faster, bigger, better" and because of the faster part I'm now working with incredibly tight timelines. I'm also developing the communications for 2008 to support the brand which is the real fun part of the job, meeting the agencies to see the creative ideas, deciding which media will work best at hitting our target audience and testing the ideas with consumers. It's a really busy time at the moment, there are so many meetings in the day that it hard to actually get any work done....though I've been saying that for months now so maybe that's just the way it is around here. I'm getting better at minimising the number of meetings I attend which at least leaves some time to get the real work done!
If Cadbury were a person....
Posted by Jill on 17 Sep 07
As promised an update with regards my gatepapers. You'll be glad to hear that scary corner passed them through gate 2 (this means work can continue on them). This was after the supply chain guys we work with sorted out a small 'sourcing decision' issue, (i.e. where we're planning on making the product). So that's all good. 'What else have you been doing this week!?' I hear you cry. Well Monday was spent doing my favourite part of consumer marketing which was brand building. This involved amongst other exercises brainstorming 'if our brand were a person how would it behave?', (note: don't tell any lawyer/banker friends you do this or else they will consider that you don't have a proper job. I have learnt from my mistakes). I've also been working on a 'consumer segmentation chart' which means we are expressing why consumers buy each one of the products in our Christmas range and today I'm doing my least favourite part which is budgeting how much I intend to spend over the rest of the year (no mean feat when all sorts of mystery items appear charged to my budget each month ordered by other parts of the business).
2nd year shock
Posted by Cat on 10 Sep 07
It's a Friday afternoon and having had a productive week I thought it would be a great way to finish off with another blog entry. I can't believe how much time has flown since my last entry. Ahhhh I remember it well. Back then I was a bright eyed and bushy tailed first-year graduate taking my shaky first steps into the wonderful world of Grocery Field Sales. Now all of a sudden I've been in my second role for five months and three great new graduates have started this week, which makes me a second-year! Having discussed this with the other graduates in my year we are all in agreement that we don't feel anywhere near experienced enough to be buddying a new intake of graduates! It certainly does put things in perspective though and looking back we've all come a long way.
The transition from field sales into the office has been a challenging one. On a day-to-day basis the two roles really couldn't be any more different and I'd be lying if I said it wasn't somewhat of a culture shock. However I really value the time I spent in field sales and I firmly believe that there is no better introduction to the business.
My new role is in Consumer Marketing as an Assistant Brand Manager working on our permissible indulgence agenda. It's a really exciting place to be as it's very much in line with the consumer trend towards health and wellbeing. As a fitness fanatic this is something that's very close to my heart!
Since starting five months ago I've had a really wide range of experience and more autonomy than I could ever have dreamed of. I suppose I have become something of a dark chocolate specialist, having implemented the launch of a new dark chocolate product and shaped the strategy for dark chocolate in 2008. However, I've also had the chance to work on cereal bars and beverages, which means that I've had an interesting day today trying to work out how to sample hot beverages at a sales conference next week. Who knew preparing a hot drink for hundreds of people could turn into a full-scale military operation?!
I just wanted to say a big welcome to the three new graduates starting and best of luck to everyone out there thinking of applying. The Cadbury graduate recruitment tour will be coming to a university near you so come over and say hello if you see us!
A plea (part two)
Posted by Jill on 21 Aug 07
Please go and buy lots of Christmas confectionery (Sainsbury's not compulsory).
Kind regards,
Jill
Assistant Brand Manager - Christmas
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