Brand Manager: Maize and Breakfast

**JOB PROFILE AT A GLANCE**

As a Brand Manager, you are expected to make a genuine contribution to the organisation. You will be responsible for the success of your appointed brand by actively driving brand growth in terms of brand equity, value market share, weighted distribution, revenue and profitability. In this role, you will need to exhibit leadership and stakeholder management qualities with a solid business acumen, to ensure that you develop and implement an exceptional brand strategy and plan that translates into tangible results, with alignment from the key stakeholders within the organisation. A core part of the deliverable is the management and alignment of agencies in terms of development and execution of communication campaigns, innovation, activations, promotions, shopper strategies and digital initiatives to ensure all marketing elements are delivered in a seamless, 360-degree manner. You will need to be able to handle multiple projects simultaneously and have the ability to work independently (as a brand leader) or as part of a team. You are expected to use your creativity, problem solving skills, express ideas and execute tasks that make a real contribution to the organisation and its mission.

**WHAT YOU WILL DO**
- Strategic marketing management to ensure key business objectives such as brand equity, revenue growth, market share, cost reductions and profit maximisation are met.
- Develop and implement brand strategy and plan to increase market share and maximise profitability within the context of utilising internal and external analysis as well as competitor, consumer and industry trend insights.
- Ensure that brand positioning and the communication platform resonates with the identified target market to deliver aligned and impactful marketing campaigns, promotions, activations, digital and social executions as well as innovation.
- Lead new launch projects by interacting with key stakeholders such as the Project Management, Sales, Finance and Operations (Factory) Teams to ensure launch timings and objectives are met.
- Assist in shopper plan development and support execution in conjunction with the shopper team to ensure that weighted distribution, share of shelf and new launches are optimised.
- Ensure ongoing business sustainability, profit maximization and growth using a combination of business, market, competitor and consumer insights (desktop research, in-trade observation, social media commentary, market research where necessary) to drive long term strategy as well as short-term tactics where risk has been identified.
- Highlight opportunities and risk to various organisational stakeholders, creating business cases for new projects, action plans and implementation of tactics where necessary.
- Cross functional team management with internal and external suppliers as well as communication with key stakeholders to ensure alignment and facilitate decision making.
- Financial understanding and analysis of brand portfolio, new projects as well as management of budgets, inventory and media investment optimisation. A ROI summary should be delivered for every marketing initiative.
- **WHAT YOU WILL BE MEASURED ON**:

- Brand Revenue (Against Budget and Growth vs. PY)
- Brand Profit / MC% (Against Budget and Growth vs. PY)
- Brand Value and Volume Market Share (Against Target and Growth vs. PY)
- Weighted and Numeric Distribution (Growth vs. PY)
- Budget Management
- Ability to show initiative and problem solve
- Ability to introduce fresh ideas
- Impact on team and team feedback (marketing, sales, finance, factory / operations)

**Qualification Requirements**:
**Qualifications**:

- A degree in Marketing, Business, Communications, Digital Marketing or Advertising. A post-graduate specialisation in Marketing is preferable.

**Experience Requirements**:
**Experience**:

- Minimum 5 years’ post-degree experience.
- Marketing in FMCG with interaction with trade and sales (3 years) will be advantageous.

**Key Outputs**:
**EXPECTED SKILLS AND ATTRIBUTES**
- Skills / Knowledge:

- Ability to develop a brand strategy with a thorough demonstration of how to translate marketing principles and insights into tangible plans and activities.
- Solid business acumen to deliver business cases and ROI around marketing initiatives, innovation, risks and opportunities. In depth understanding of P & L, the drivers of revenue and profit, and managing and tracking these against organisational targets.
- Competency to pull and analyse market research and utilse insights to drive strategic marketing and business initiatives and decision making.
- Solid understanding of shopper principles, category management and business to business marketing.
- Stakeholder management and the ability to influence, network and lead to drive alignment and facilitate decision making.
- Well-developed capability on Outlook, PowerPoint, Word and Excel with the ability to put together attractive well thought out presentations and p