Product Marketing Director Seeking Review: Exceptional Talent

Stage 1: Tech Nation Endorsement
1

Hi everyone,

My name is Tina and I have been working in a consumer electronic product company from 2019 - end of 2023, where I took multiple roles: Brand Director (2.5 years) → Product Director (1 year) → Head of UK Branch (1 year). I have more than 13 years of work experience. I am planning to apply for the exceptional talent for commercial growth. It would be great to have your help reviewing my material.

LoRs:

  1. COO of the company who I worked with in different projects:
    To talk about the recognition and the commercial results I’ve achieved within the company, including I am the fastest-ever promotion to Director level within 1 year, I led the brand to grow as the World’s No.1 brand in mobile charging, and successfully built several product launches (among them one particular product achieved historically highest unit sold among charging products on US Amazon). In summary, how I was a crucial part for the company’s high achievement in IPO and how valuable I am for the company business growth.

  2. COO/Co-founder of a company that provides digital marketing service for our major campaigns, who worked closely with me and my team in all the campaign digital marketing strategy, ads planning and execution:
    To talk about how I embodies consumer insight with technologies in the product to form approachable selling-point and marketing communication plans, and how innovative my approach of the integrated marketing strategy was, which led not only to the success of the historical sales record of one single product, but also enabled their company to acquire numerous new companies as their customer to leverage that strategy that I led to build.

  3. Director of a global top e-commerce platform who was representing our business in their company:
    To talk about how I was one of the pioneers pushing forward the branding building integrated marketing approach on such a typical e-commerce platform when the majority of all other tech-product companies were still focused on conversions. This was quite in line with their platform strategic direction for further growth.

MC:
EV1: Business Achievement - The brand grew to “the World’s No.1 Mobile Charging Brand” under my leadership, which is in terms of the retail sales value in (3 consecutive years of) 2020, 2021, and 2022 - exactly the years when I was the Brand Director of the brand. This recognition is validated by an international 3rd party market research company.

EV2: High earnings - my salary is highly above the market range and is also much higher than my peers in the same level within the company.

EV3: Industry Recognition: I was invited as a panel speaker at an event Google hosted for all Chinese companies seeking for growing business in international market. (The panel was held during covid, so the venue wasn’t at a big hall, instead it was in Google’s big conference room. Will it be an issue to demonstrate the impact on the event?)

OC1:
My innovation is mainly in embody consumer insight with technology background, and build holistic integrated marketing plans based on the insight to drive sales growth, it works because the marketing communication is targeting majority of the population instead of only geeks.

EV1: A successful product launch I’ve led. The product (a simple cord, i.e. charging cable) is specially designed for female consumers, which was considered very niche. I contributed to the early market understanding as input to the product design and led the launch campaign throughout.
Evidence content:

  1. The launch campaign won a national marketing creativity award’s silver medal of the year.
  2. Grew our female user significantly first-ever - over 60% consumers are female, which helps the brand to significantly gain female user group for the first time.
  3. Sales revenue of the product grew 325% vs. previous products in the same category.
  4. International recognition of the product: coverage in Rolling Stone, Mashable Senior Editor’s “personal recommendation”, Editor’s award from the German top technology media - CONNECT
  5. After our successful product launch, at least 5 competitors launched similar products right away to catch up.

EV2: Leveraging my innovative approach based hugely on consumer insight and built upon integrated marketing plans. I speerheaded the brand’s complete product serialisation redesign, which segmented its products across different charging subcategories based on different consumer preference types - from entry level to high end tire. This strategy successfully increased the profitability of the products.
Evidence content:
1.Internal business figures indicate the split in between different series and the significant growth in the higher priced (with more consumer value) products.
2. Company business review figure shows that the brand contributed 70% of the company’s annual profit after this strategy has been adopted.

EV3: Successful launched our products into major UK retailers such as Argos, Curry’s, which was attempted for 3 years by the previous team leader with no luck. By leveraging my approach with consumer-insight-led product selections together with holistic integrated marketing plans, we successfully launched in those major retailers within 5-8 months under my leadership.
Evidence content:

  1. Letter of reference: Director at one of UK’s top distributors who worked with me and my UK team closely when I was the Head of our UK Branch, who could confirm my leadership in growing business by pitching into major retailers, which brought ** pound revenue incremental.
  2. The product selling pages on Argos and Curry’s which show the success launch in those channels.
  3. Selected slides of the pitching materials demonstrated in the retailer customer meetings which could show how I was leveraging the consumer insight data and information to convince a successful purchase decision from the retailer buyer teams.

OC3:
EV1: The brand’s global consumer grew from 70M to 100M under my leadership.
Evidence content:

  1. The brand’s official website where indicates the user size.
  2. A picture of previous products packages where indicates the previous user base.

EV2: A successful product launch campaign I led that generated the historically highest unit sold record among charging product in US Amazon.
Evidence content:

  1. Won a National marketing creativity award’s Gold award of the year, 72 winners out of 2845 participants that year.
  2. Internal business review shows that the product unit sales grew 13 times by the launch campaign, creating the highest unit sold record on US Amazon.
  3. Internal business review indicates the product conversion rate is 5 times vs. prior the campaign.
  4. Internal business figures which shows that, with its contribution in revenue, the total brand revenue growth outgrew the market growth by 1.5 times.

EV3: Another product launch campaign which created a phenomenal buzz while generating significant business result.
Evident content:

  1. Won a National marketing creativity award’s BEST award of the year, 9 winners out of 3525 participants that year.
  2. Internal business review shows that the product family successfully dominants its subcategory as the top, also drive the whole subcategory grow by 200%.
  3. The product family’s online impression is over 1billion, and its Share of Voice grew from 0 to 72% by the launch campaign.
  4. Internal review material that shows the product family was covered in more than 4000 media articles and almost 100 top technology KOLs cross platforms.
  5. Company review material that shows the product family being sold across 10,000 retailers across the world.

EV4: I received multiple rewards due to the success in growing the business, both revenue and profit.
Evidence content:

  1. An agreement for the Long-term incentive compensation with a significant amount.
  2. Contract of Company stock option authorisation.

My questions:

  1. There are three product launch campaigns that won a National marketing creativity award in the evidence (both in OC1 and OC3), the award is the same title but also the biggest one in my country - its online exposure exceeds 11million according to the official website, (therefore, these wards are practically the highest national recognition one could get within the field), will it be an issue that “too many” of my successful cases won awards from the same organisation? Additionally, these 3 award-winning product launch campaigns are spliced in OC1 and OC3, will that be a problem?

  2. Do you think my EV3 in MC is sufficient due to the limitation of the event offline attendants?

  3. Understanding from the guideline that company internal awards is viewed not sufficient as evidence, so should I exclude those in the materials? Currently not shown: company’s fastest promotion to Director level; company MVP of the year awarded - 10 out of 4500 employees. Does any of them worthy of being included and if so, where do you suggest?

  4. Is the arrangement properly demonstrated and sufficient for Exceptional Talent?

  5. Any input/ advice/ comment that you view in this arrangement is more than welcome.

Hugely appreciated for all your review and feedback. @Francisca_Chiedu @pahuja @Peace_Itimi @mahdibeee @Tolulope_Ogunjuyigbe @Augusta @applicantgc @alexnk @ellagna @Ayotunde Looking forward to hearing from your advices. Thanks a lot.

2

Hi @TinaW

LORs

  • Is the work mentioned by the COO for a product-led digital technology company?
  • is the digital marketing provided for product-led digital technology companies?

MC3: what evidences do you have for this Google event?

OC3

  • how do the external evidence of increased revenue link to your self documentation of that they grew under your leadership? Do the external sites mention your name?
  • same question for second & third evidence, do external links mention your name? If not, what’s the link between the impact and your contribution to this impact?
  1. Awards are not an issue but does the award mention your name or your company’s?
  2. MC is weak because of the attendee size
  3. You can include them as add-on but you need other strong supporting evidence to clear the criteria.
  4. My biggest question is that I don’t see the link between the impact and your contribution. It will come through support letters plus external evidence that mention your name.
3

My main concerns going through your evidence mostly come down to:
1- Does it relate to digital sector? The wording is somehow showing it as it its not e.g. Argos, charging cable…
2- Some of the evidence is vague such as the award and also the speaking. Was the event considered a high profile one regardless of the name of Google? How many attended the event? You did mention it was covid but did it have live coverage and do you evidence to show that such as the screenshot of the live event and the attendees.
3- I dont see the links between your documents specifically the impacts you had, you have to be really convincing regarding innovation which I honestly dont see it and its best to go for OC2 and 3 maybe instead.
4- Don’t forget the emphasis on external validation. Reports, news and other coverages that can showcase your succees and PR would be major benefit.

4

@pahuja Thank you so much for your responds.

To follow up on your questions:
LORs

  • Is the work mentioned by the COO for a product-led digital technology company?

– yes this is the COO of the company I employed at, the company is a product-led digital technology company.

  • is the digital marketing provided for product-led digital technology companies?

– This digital marketing company provides digital marketing services, they later developed a SAAS product for digital marketing optimisation based on the strategy that I led to develop in the campaigns (which they were a service provider in the campaign).

MC3: what evidences do you have for this Google event?

– 1. A picture of me among other two speakers at the event.
– 2. A letter of reference from the event host (Google Senior Manager level) to endorse the event topic is about growing business in international market via integrated marketing strategy.

OC3

  • how do the external evidence of increased revenue link to your self documentation of that they grew under your leadership? Do the external sites mention your name?
  • same question for second & third evidence, do external links mention your name? If not, what’s the link between the impact and your contribution to this impact?

– Thanks a lot for raising this question as I didn’t realise it at all.
– My thought was, the proof of my contribution on the award-winning campaigns (as the project leader and built the strategy throughout) would come from my employment company COO’s LoR. I guess the same for the consumer growth, it could be described in my R&R and the LoR from the COO.

  1. Awards are not an issue but does the award mention your name or your company’s?

– they all mention my company’s name and also have the campaign’s name, I thought the COO’s LoR would prove that these awards are gained by my leadership. But is it not sufficient? (It’s a shame that I couldn’t go to the award day personally due to covid and busy schedules bace then…)

  1. MC is weak because of the attendee size
  2. You can include them as add-on but you need other strong supporting evidence to clear the criteria.
    – Thanks for the feedback. Do you think it’s better to move OC3 EV4 (the stock option reward) to MC as an evidence? I didn’t do so because I thought then there will be too many “income” related evidences in MC, does it matter?
  1. My biggest question is that I don’t see the link between the impact and your contribution. It will come through support letters plus external evidence that mention your name.

– My name was not mentioned in those three external awards unfortunately, only the company’s and the award doesn’t mention any individual names cause it’s for campaigns recognition.
Do you think adding some more letter of reference could be the solution to build a clearer and stronger link between the impact and myself?

Super appreciated!

5

@mahdibeee Thank you so much for your feedback. It really helps me to see my preparation from a distance.

1- Does it relate to digital sector? The wording is somehow showing it as it its not e.g. Argos, charging cable…

– May I seek for your opinion on this - do you think this company is identified as related to digital sector? More detailed info about the company:

  1. It is a consumer electronic product company, it’s been pioneering in charging technology for 10 years (direct quote from the official company website)
  2. the product the company designs and sells include: Charging accessories, IoT security products, Robotic cleaners, Headphones and Speakers, Solar solutions.

2- Some of the evidence is vague such as the award and also the speaking. Was the event considered a high profile one regardless of the name of Google? How many attended the event? You did mention it was covid but did it have live coverage and do you evidence to show that such as the screenshot of the live event and the attendees.

– Well received. I’ll definitely need to revise and improve on this piece.

3- I dont see the links between your documents specifically the impacts you had, you have to be really convincing regarding innovation which I honestly dont see it and its best to go for OC2 and 3 maybe instead.

– Wanna confirm with you for one thing: do you think the current EV that I listed could possibly be used for OC2, or you just don’t think they are valid at all and you would suggest me to find other evidences for OC2? Thanks a lot for helping clarify for me.

4- Don’t forget the emphasis on external validation. Reports, news and other coverages that can showcase your succees and PR would be major benefit.

– Thank you so much for the add-on reminder! Since all the coverages are mainly on the products that I launched or the campaigns I led without my name appearing in them, I guess I’ll need to find additional proofs to link them with me. Do you think adding some letters of reference to link would be sufficient?

Again, super thanks @mahdibeee

6

Think as a reviewer looks at your documents and connects the dots. Put the dots there starting from the SOP which makes them see why you are a talent and why they have to go on finding reasons to endorse you. They will look at validation from others by reading the Recommendation letters and then if its strong, related, known you for more than 12 and they are prominent figures in their industry (maybe their LinkedIn and news about them showcases this), they will go for finding evidence ot what you and they mentioned in your 10 documents.

Regarding the company, I would definitely put my focus on robotics and IoT because the charger is really hard to sell.

7

I haven’t seen your evidence to give my opinion regarding the OC2 and whether your evidence qualifies. But OC1 is generally hard to sell so if you can instead showcase your commercial impacts and contributions it would be great. You say it in SOP, show it in Recommendation letters and prove it in the 10 evidence documents I always say to friends who ask me about this :smiling_face: Also regarding the external validation, have you had any experience in mentorship in a contineous and structured format maybe? Are there any news coverage at all maybe? Again Im cant see them but even in some cases a LinkedIn post might cut it based on experience helping several others get endorsee before I applied myself.

8

@mahdibeee Thanks a lot for your response and general advice. Let me sink in and dive more possibilities here. Would love to hear from your thought on my revisions later on. Thanks in advance!

9

  • you need to prove the company is a product-led digital company. We recently saw a rejection letter where TN highlighted that they don’t think the company is a product-led digital tech company despite the product being a hardware tech product. Be careful here in how you position and narrate.

  • event attendee size must be 100+, the letter from event organizer just confirming the topic of your speech is not enough. You need stronger evidence here.

  • support letters are insufficient evidences as per TN. You need to have some external validation clearly reflecting “your” contribution.

  • if awards don’t mention your name, how does it prove they were given specifically for your contribution and not towards overall team contribution? This doesn’t show your contribution individually.

  • you should add a few reference letters for sure however they are not sufficient. You will have to craft some more external proof to strengthen your application for success.

10

@pahuja Thanks a lot for your feedback. Let me think deeper and dive for more then. Would love to hear your feedback on the revisions later. Cheers!

11

very solid. It does feel the number of evidential materials is too high. About the speech at Google, it would be good to know the number of attendees. Otherwise it may not be considered a solid piece of evidence. However, you have other strong achievements so should be fine. It would also be helpful if you can present the metrics with company sign-off.