CMI Lead South Africa

Function: Marketing

Work Level: 1CU

Reports to: Assistant Manager, CMI Ice Cream

Location:  South Africa (La Lucia Ridge/Sandton)

Terms & Conditions: Local Conditions Apply

If you are in the Unilever Ice Cream business or are considering working for the Unilever ice Cream business, you will work for the global, leading Ice Cream player with €8bn Turn Over in 2023. The Ice Cream business is operating in a highly attractive category, as we are part of the 1 trillion snacking and refreshment industry, growing consistently at high pace. We have strong brands equities: 5 of the top 10 selling brands including Wall’s, Magnum, Ben &Jerry’s. We are investing to unlock the full growth potential of Ice Cream as a standalone entity, once we separate from Unilever, which is planned to happen by November 2025. Ice Cream has distinct characteristics from Unilever’s other operating businesses and the growth potential of Ice Cream will be better delivered under a different ownership structure.

We hope that you will want to build the new chapter of our Ice Cream history together with us.

ABOUT ICE CREAM

We spark moments of happiness for people and within the communities where we operate. As ice cream makers we are serious about happiness. With warm hearts, we create the coolest products, and we supply them to our consumers. As the largest ice cream company in the world, we have over 100 years of experience in delivering smiles, and we plan to continue this for many more years to come. If you are in the current Unilever Ice Cream business or considering working for the newly separated Ice Cream business, you will work for the Global leading Ice Cream player in a growing category where we are part of the 1 trillion snacking and refreshment industry, growing consistently at high pace.

JOB PURPOSE

This role is an exciting opportunity for someone who is naturally curious and seeks out opportunities for big thinking, disrupting the status quo, and tackling the ever-changing landscape of snacking, dessert & consumer packaged goods. We are seeking an energetic, results-driven ice-cream lover with leadership abilities and a passion for consumers and building brands. The ideal candidate will have demonstrated business impact in both brand equity development and data & digital marketing. They should exhibit excellent interpersonal skills, strong analytical abilities with a proven track record of turning insights into action, organizational skills, creativity, and strong project management experience. Senior stakeholder influencing, and evidence of business transformation and growth results are a must. The individual is expected to exercise judgment in coordinating and implementing projects to completion under tight deadlines and to lead projects and influence others assertively.

In this dynamic, hyper-connected world, we know harnessing the power of data and technology transforms the way we drive innovation, connect with consumers, and surprise and delight them by meeting their everyday needs. To accelerate our journey at an exponential pace, we are looking for the best digital & brand crafting talent, with a passion for all things digital and the courage to break convention and be a change catalyst within our business.

WHAT WILL YOUR MAIN RESPONSIBILITIES BE

The key responsibilities in this role are:

Short version

• Core partner to BU GM and Marketing Team

• Leads consumer insight into BU agenda of strategy, Sales & Operations Planning, innovation deployment, Communication deployment, NRM, etc.

• Leads consumer guidance for Innovation and Communication projects

• Interfaces with CMI Expertise Teams to bring agile answers to business questions and identify growth opportunities.

• Deliver local consumer connection programs that create growth insights for brands and categories.

• Manage local suppliers ensuring maximum value for the business regarding quality, timeliness and service

Long version

• Primary responsibility will be to harness consumer and market insights to shape strategies that elevate brand superiority. You will be instrumental in creating brands that are unmissable, ensuring they stand out in the market and drive sustainable growth.

• Lead the charge on continuous tracking and monitoring of Market Performance metrics for Ice Cream brand and liaising with agencies responsible. Additionally, ensure the sharing of key insights with the relevant teams to help steer the course of day-to-day strategy on the brand

• Build strategic, sustainable business advantages for the Ice Cream business in the short and long term by combining deep consumer-centricity with a nuanced understanding of business performance and strategy.

• Build effective and collaborative relationships with varied Business Teams and associated functions working on Ice Cream Brands, including Marketing teams, R&D, and CTI to understand key business objectives and thereby identify and communicate the role and value that market data and consumer research plays in the decision-making process.

• Translate business objectives into clear research briefs for the brand, and communicate actionable insights based on data-based findings and logic to enable informed decisions.

• Develop an understanding of the marketing mix creation process and ensure clarity of key risky assumptions and hypotheses to be tested in research at respective stages.

• Learn and employ a range of qualitative and quantitative research methodologies, choosing the methodology/source which is best suited to answering the business objectives for Ice Cream.

• Ensure rigor in research design, data collection, analysis, and recommendations, collaborating with research agency partners where applicable.

• Collaborate closely with the marketing team to help develop impactful brand assets, create compelling content, and amplify brand messaging across digital and retail platforms in the market.

• Strategic Influence: Collaborate across functions to ensure insights are effectively translated into actionable strategies. Present insights and strategic recommendations to Ice Cream BU Leadership Team to guide corporate strategy and product positioning. Influence long-term brand strategies through deep consumer understanding and market analysis.

• Managing relationships across other CMI teams, agency partners, CTI, cross functional teams.

• Ability to collaborate seamless & lead across agency partners and internal Unilever teams

WHAT YOU WILL NEED TO SUCCEED

Experiences & Qualifications

 This is a CMI role which requires:

• Minimum 3 years of research experience; preferable experienced in both brand development and brand building research methods. 

• Consumer mindset; driver of consumer centric marketing

• External orientation; driver of bringing the outside world into the marketing team (consumer, culture, future)

• Holistic / lateral thinking; ability to create new insight, elevate thinking & think out of the box

• Digital & data capabilities; driver of new digital methodology & measurement tools

• Business partnership skills (demonstrable track record of outstanding partnership with business partners, stake-holder, communication, OTIF delivery, strong point of view, identification of growth opportunities).

Skills

For CMI there is a set of essential skills needed for every role, and then 4 sets of skills associated to doing different types of CMI work; Strategy & Futurology, Brand Activating, Data Artistry, Brand Crafting.

This role requires following key skills:

• Marketing & 6P Acumen: Partner marketing in generating brand opportunities that create the best end to end consumer experience across the 6Ps

• Business Acumen & Partnering: Work with cross functions not only marketing/CD. Shifting all briefs and learning plans from insight output to business outcome. Extracting maximum value from data and insight initiatives by building strong collaborations and influencing key business partners (internally and externally)

• Transformational Story-Telling: Creating and delivering, fact-based, business-relevant, consumer-centric insight narratives, capable of driving business action and impact. Successfully introducing a breakthrough idea, process or tool that gains followership and delivers measurable change within the business.

•  Market Research & Insight Generation: Knowing when and how to deploy research to answer key business questions and how to connect all available data in the business to transform knowledge into transformational insights for the business.

• Strategic Thinking & Problem Solving: Defining a problem, causation and solution in an objective, systematic way that showcases vulnerabilities or threats clearly while delivering opportunities that offer a competitive advantage.

• Digital Acumen: Using your digital acumen to inform marketing and customer strategies and activities, creating and landing content that resonates with the target audience across different digital channels

Leadership

• You are energized by delivering fantastic results. You are an example to others – both your results and your resilience. You are constantly on the lookout for better ways to do things, engaging and collaborating with others along the way.

• As an individual you are the one responsible for your own wellbeing and delivering high standards of work. You must also focus on the Consumer and what they need. You are humble and have your head up, looking around to interpret evidence and data smartly, spot issues and opportunities to make things better.

• Critical SOL (Standards of Leadership) Behaviors

  • PASSION FOR HIGH PERFORMANCE: Takes personal responsibility and accountability for execution and results. Has an owner’s mindset, using data and insight to make decisions.

  • PERSONAL MASTERY: Sets high standards for themselves. Actively builds own wellbeing and resilience.

  • CONSUMER LOVE: Whatever their role, always looks for better ways to serve consumers. Invests time inside and outside to understand the needs of consumers.

  • PURPOSE & SERVICE: Has humility, understanding that leadership is service to others, inside and outside Unilever.

  • AGILITY: Explores the world around them, continually learning and developing their skills.

Unilever embraces diversity and encourages applicates from all walks of life! This means giving full and fair consideration to all applicants and continuing development of all employees regardless of age, disability, gender reassignment, race, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation, marriage and civil partnership, and pregnancy and maternity. 

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