Bijoern R. - Junior Product Manager

“Ferrero”: since 1956, in Germany this name has been a symbol of a company which offers the highest quality products and makes people’s everyday life sweeter. Nearly everybody knows our brands and therefore I really considered it something special to start my Marketing career at Ferrero. The two and a half years which have passed, have proved to be an extremely inspiring, intense and instructive time. I started in the area of innovation management, with the development and implementation of marketing strategies for new products and their testing in the market. In addition to the exciting “pioneer work”, I have enjoyed the strong international involvement, particularly with the Italian colleagues. One important personal success was learning the Italian language, with the help of the Ferrero language courses.

And currently? Transferring to the national German Marketing team has offered me the most exciting challenge: the introduction of Nutella&GO! I was already in charge of this project during its testing phase and now I support the brand during its “first steps”. As a product manager I have the task of making sure that Nutella&GO will achieve an established market position over the long term period and will make consumers enthusiastic over and over again. Of course, this requires analytical skills as well as know-how about the market and its future. Most important are creativity and good ideas: advertising means seducing over again and over again! It is therefore equally important to be willing to improve and to continuously learn something new.

Now, you may ask: how can one be prepared for such a challenging task? In your first year you gain experience in different areas as a Marketing trainee. In addition to the training on the job, where you have a great deal of responsibility right from the beginning, you also get to know other areas. Training over a period of several months in field service and Trade Marketing, short periods in different “Marketing-related” departments and working at an external advertising agency all lead to a final comprehensive workshop program which also comprises a seven-week stay in Italy. This way, you get an overview of the activities of Ferrero Group and gain experience for your work in intercultural teams. You expand your hard and soft skills. It’s great to be surrounded everyday by colleagues who support and challenge each other. It is for a good reason that our motto is “We are Ferrero: we make the difference”.

(Bijoern R.)