Brand Manager

Exciting opportunity exists within the Liquor Industry - this is a newly created role for a Fully Vaccinated individual with a Post Grad Marketing Diploma and 5 years Brand Marketing Experience in FMCG/Liquor Industry.  This role will be filled in line with my clients EE plan and preference will be given to African individuals who meet the criteria.

You will be expected to manage and build a strong profitable and identifiable brand that are powerful with distinctive propositions to customers and consumers. Development of strategic marketing plans (which are consumer centric) and the delivery of tactics which enable the execution of these plans – thereby achieving the business objective as detailed above.

Think in the future and anticipate trends and opportunities by using the key marketing pillars of: Research; Insights Generation, Promotional Planning and Execution Excellence

EXPERIENCE & QUALIFICATIONS:

• Appropriate tertiary qualification (Marketing Degree)
• Post Graduate Degree would be advantageous
• +5 yrs Brand Marketing experience in FMCG industry
• Understanding the South African Market and intimate knowledge of Main Market will be advantageous
• Budgetary and cost containment understanding
• Research interpretation, tools and usage
• Competitive analysis
• Consumer insight and understanding
• Influencing skills, with a level of comfort in working across levels and functions within the organization.

DUTIES & RESPONSIBILITIES:

Reporting to the Head of Marketing 

• • Market Review and insight generation & application
  • Contribution to the formulation of Growth Plans 
  • Brand market positioning
  • Setting consumer & activity goals (consideration & conversion) and customer goals.
  • Working with principles to develop activity plans based on a clear understanding of the estimated impact of both new & existing activities.
• Competitor review and anticipating impact to the respective brands
• Agency Management and coordination: Media, PR, Creative, BTL, Social/Digital agency
• Translating the brand strategy into activity planning: 18 month plan outlining activity by channel and brand.
• Manage and optimise relationship with the global brand teams.
• Development and management of brand budgets for each activity/sales driver alongside the respective Commercial Channel Managers
• Plan promotional initiatives or projects in detail with agencies
• Provide agencies with the necessary frame of reference to enable them to endorse and advance the brand in a manner that adds value to the brand positioning.
• Ensure all activities developed within the legislated marketing guides and meets the AWARE principles.
• Work in conjunction with the trade marketing manager and Business Unit Leaders to ensure seamless distribution of marketing material into region
• Effective use and management of Consumer insight research and other research tools to strengthen Brand performance and to develop brand plans that are effective.
• Establish a close working relationship with different commercial teams in order to apply trade and consumer feedback effectively in order to assist commercial teams in achieving and exceeding targets.
• Accountable for working with strategic partners to develop activity plans based on a clear understanding of the impact of both new & existing activities. Measurement & evaluation / A&P effectiveness to maximise activity and consumer engagement
• Assist and or support the Commercial Director and principle on key projects, as and when needed.
• Monthly submission of brand scorecards/reports (rationale & commentary of brand volume, brand performance) & A&P variance commentary. Development of brand updates for Exec on request
• Long term brand strategy, architecture and positioning development in alignment with portfolio strategy through insight generation.
• Contribute meaningful input into the LE process (volume forecasting & A&P).
• Defining and tracking of brand KPIs against forecasts
• Ability to work across multiple brands with different set of objectives

KEY SKILLS & COMPETENCIES:

• Strategic Penetration (Uses analytical skills to generate consumer driven strategies that deliver focused, growth driving business outcomes)
• Consumer Insight (Identifies key consumer issues and ensures penetrative consumer understanding and insights are applied to drive brand growth)
• Motivating & inspiring agencies & cross functional teams (Understands what drives & motivates internal & 3rd party teams & constantly strives to build great productive relationships by breaking down barriers to performance)
• Marketing Judgement (Understands the true consumer impact of our brand building ‘output’ by using clearly defined logical criteria balanced with practical instinct to judge the work)
• Commerciality (Uses performance measurement & sound financial management – balancing short & long term – to build the brands. Balances commercial, customer & consumer motivations to deliver outstanding results)
• Excellence in execution (Delivers high quality results seen through to world class completion. Maintains high standards by driving quality, speed & cost management appropriately.)
• Project Management (Develops fully integrated project plans grounded in reality and aimed at delivering required outputs within time and budget constraints.)