Hiring Trends in Marketing Squeeze Brand Managers

Marketing technologies and channels are evolving quickly, yet marketing budgets are under pressure. Chief marketing officers (CMOs) need to figure out the mix of skills and capabilities that will succeed. To quantify how consumer companies have been upgrading their talent, Bain & Company, using Aura’s proprietary data platform, analyzed hiring trends at 50 large companies in the US from 2020 to 2024. What’s clear is that a rise in the number of different specialist roles and shifting perspectives on whether to manage projects in-house or outsourced to an agency have made the brand manager’s job more difficult.

Leading the specialist surge are roles focused on artificial intelligence and machine learning, which collectively increased by 61%, along with data-related positions, which rose 15% to 18% from 2020 through 2024 depending on the industry. Many companies now experiment with generative AI technology as a way to become more productive and make personalized communications.

Brands also have taken more control of specialized creative and digital media capabilities by bringing more strategic work in-house, as reflected in the rise in the number of both creative and digital media roles.

As marketing organizations become increasingly complex, brand managers are asked to do more, such as developing an integrated brand growth plan and coordinating a network of specialists to activate the plan. Yet in recent years brand management roles have declined as a share of the overall marketing team. It’s likely that some brand managers are close to burnout. In response, CMOs should ask:

• What role do brand managers play in our organization?
• Regarding capabilities, what trade-offs are we making in cost, control, speed, and expertise in deciding what to do in-house vs. through an agency?
• Do we have access to the right mix of channel expertise to address increasingly complex campaigns?
• Are we able to act on consumer insights with timely, cost-effective, creative assets?
• Are we investing in tools such as generative AI to raise productivity?