I don't know what I want to do.....

i would say BM is a subset marketing. my title is brand manager, but i'm in the marketing department. we also have trade marketers, who manage merchandising and displays in store and work with our retailers to maximize our face to the consumer at their stores. but as the brand manager, i am the gatekeeper, so to speak, for absolutely everything that goes on with my brand. it's my baby

some companies don't have brand management at all, or if they do it's at a very high level. credit card companies come to mind... take american express. they have a zillion types of marketers that manage different facets of the business, but the AMEX brand is singular. i can go into more detail on this if it's not clear...

i've never felt any sort of pressure in terms of layoffs, etc. yes, marketing is always the first to go, but in my experience that means mktg budgets are cut. not the people. unfortunately, within the mktg budget it's advertising that gets cut first and that means many ad agencies end up laying their people off.

actually layoffs at my company tend to affect the product designers before it affects the marketers. we are a marketing driven and marketing led company. we make all the business decisions (in conjunction with our finance team -- incidentally, you couldn't pay me enough to do their job. it's awful!). it's nice to have that sort of power...