Speaker 1: In brand management, you have to analyze a lot of data and a lot of consumer insights.
Speaker 2: Booth has a data-driven marketing focus and that's something that I think is really unique and it's something that companies love to see and that they associate with Booth students.
Speaker 3: The most helpful class I took at Booth was the New Products and Services Lab. I was actually able to work with Molson-Coors on an innovation project with the team.
Speaker 4: But my all-time favorite and I think the one that's mostly applicable to CPG is digital marketing. So it helps when you're interacting with media agencies or when you're building a marketing campaign.
Speaker 5: Pricing Strategies is one that's really popular at Booth as well as Managerial Decision Modeling. I think those are really great in terms of teaching me how to deal with large data sets and how to pull insights from that.
Speaker 6: So the Kilts Center for Marketing was really helpful for me to get into brand management.
Speaker 7: And they provide a lot of hands-on workshops as well as connections to alumni and industries.
Speaker 8: So the Kilts Center Case Competition is a week-long project where students will get a specific business problem from the sponsor. The year I did it, it was Tyson, last year it was Whirlpool, and you tackle a very specific business challenge within a week. I think it's a really great opportunity in that you do get that hands-on data experience as well as exposure to what these marketing business problems look like.
Speaker 9: Just being a part of the marketing group helped build my confidence in terms of like my interviewing skills and my networking skills.
Speaker 10: If a student came to me and said they wanted to go into CPG brand management, I would tell them to choose Booth for three main reasons. That being data-driven marketing approach, the Kilts Center and its resources as well as just the people at Booth.
An MBA for someone in brand management seems like a natural choice, but what do students really get out of their business degree once they’re on the other side of graduation? Facilitating a brand image within the Consumer Product Goods industry is a challenging role to take on; when you’re balancing data analytics, visual merchandising, public perception, and product quality assurance, there’s a lot to learn and prepare for.
We interviewed Booth students about their experiences within the Consumer Product Goods sphere to get an understanding of what the MBA journey is like for Boothies pursuing this path. One student cited the Developing New Products and Services Lab as being largely helpful for learning how to work within innovation teams to bring novel goods into the market. The Digital Marketing Lab was also referenced for gaining proficiency in creating campaigns and collaborating with media professionals. One student mentioned Pricing Strategies as an effective learning tool for using data set analyses to create insights and business methods.
CPG education at Booth expands beyond the classroom, as we learned from our students, many of whom pointed to the Kilts Center for Marketing as a valuable tool for workshops and networking with industry professionals. One of the opportunities the Kilts Center provides is the Marketing Case Competition, where students compete in solving hands-on business challenges issued by real companies. The Full-Time student Marketing Group and Part-Time student Marketing Club are also well-known by CPG students as standout resources for networking and collaboration with fellow students.
If you have an interest in genuine connection to your company’s audience, Chicago Booth can help you develop the skills you need to become a world-class brand manager. Booth’s data driven approach to business education empowers students going into Consumer Product Goods to effectively work with data to create more applicable and efficient business solutions for their products.
If you want a 360 lens and a supportive, tight-knit community, you should definitely come to Chicago Booth. If you want to have alumni at every single top company in the Chicago area and beyond, you should definitely come to Booth.
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