• Ad Age, Monday, October 12, 2009 10:40 AM

A new report next week from Forrester is going to recommend replacing "brand manager" with "brand advocate," Jack Neff reports, and if its advice is taken, folks bearing the new title "will be seemingly more powerful and consumer-centric, much nimbler, and more real-time-oriented than the brand manager of today."

"Adaptive Brand Marketing: Rethinking Your Approach to Branding in the Digital Age" also suggests marketers adopt on-the-fly budgeting and media plans that can adapt quickly to changing conditions. It also recommends a more prominent role for "consumer intelligence" -- market research and analytics -- as well as for "predictive modeling."

As for agencies, forget about long-term partnerships. The report favors ad hoc alliances and bringing some functions in-house. Radical as it may seem, executives at Procter & Gamble and Unilever say that they're already doing much of what Forrester recommends.

"However well traditional advertising agencies read the signals and recognize the need for radical change in their capabilities," writes Unilever CEO Paul Polman in an e-mail, "few agencies can address all the communications needs of a brand." He compares his company's global brand directors more to orchestra directors than traditional managers.

Read the whole story at Ad Age »