Industry Indication
Once again this year, our survey reflects a varied mix of responses from product managers at different sized companies, who work in various marketing capacities and have a wide range of experience. The breakdown between industries is similar to last year with the majority of respondents working in pharma (60%), and a nearly identical split between medical device (14%) and biotech (13%). Other respondents indicated that they could not choose just one sector because their company is involved in some combination of the three. No matter the industry, however, the plurality of our respondents is located at the top. Just over half work at top 20 companies, while the voice of the little guy is still represented with about three in 10 from boutique-sized companies (Figure 1).
Brand Experience
The average respondent has been in the industry for 15 years (compared to 17.9 last year) and has worked on an average of 11 brands (13 last year). It is unclear if these decreases are due to downsizing or a dry pipeline. (It is quite possible that we just received more responses from people at the beginning of their careers.) When it comes to product launches (Figure 2), a tad more of our respondents have only been through one (9% in 2011 vs. 14% in 2012) or between two and three (35% vs. 39%). Also, the average number of product launches worked on dropped slightly from 3.6 last year to 3.4. However, the average time spent with a current employer has increased from 7.1 years to 7.5. For the most part, the numbers in that category are similar to last year, except for the 11-15 years group where the increase jumped from 9% to 23%.
When it comes to job titles, 31% are either a Senior Product Manager or Product Manager, 30% are either a Director of Marketing or Vice President of Marketing, 5% are Product Directors, and 2% are Directors of Sales. You can see the effect of the growing importance of digital as there was a Director of Social Media, a Senior Manager of eMarketing, a Multichannel Strategy Senior Manager, and a Director of Marketing Excellence.
