Surf Innovations Design Manager

Surf Overview

Surf is one of Unilever’s biggest Masterbrands, with a value leadership that is highly contested. It is present in 4 categories to date – Bar detergent, Powder detergent, Liquid detergent and Fabric Enhancers/Conditioners. Known as the #1 Laundry detergent brand, Surf is challenged to maintain the proper value equation in a highly competitive landscape. While the challenges of fabric cleaning revolve around superiority and competitiveness, Surf Fabric Enhancers is currently being pincered, hence a rejig of its strategy needs to be executed.

Purpose of the Role

To lead and land Surf’s Innovation strategy across the 4 CPGs it is present in, ensuring a future fit portfolio for one of Unilever’s biggest Masterbrands.

Responsibilities

• Develop an in-depth understanding of consumers and competitors – the business environment in which the brands compete including category segments, channels and target audience through the analysis of available data and information.
• Help understand key success factors and obstacles for new product launches/campaigns and –where necessary- fine tune the mix and the strategy accordingly, always keeping one single brand globally.
• Support the formation of a strong brand strategy, including identification of gaps and growth opportunities within the market, clear brand differentiation, well crafted portfolio and mix, giving the brand both short and long term wins.
• Strategic project management and stakeholder influencing, building project timelines and defining key milestones and responsibilities for effective progress and On Time In Full (OTIF) launches
• Craft robust communication strategy for brand campaigns with convincing and appealing assets, delivering single minded messaging to consumers in the most effective channels for the target audience.
• Develop and build robust business cases with a strong sense of literacy of the PNL.
• Help the creation and implementation of market research plans to prepare and validate the brand launch.
• Develop Innovation Strategy and clear guardrails for the next 12 quarters with a clear distinction between a relaunch and brand-led growth activity.
• Lead cross-functional teams including Finance, Consumer & Market Insight, R&D, Supply Chain to ensure successful project implementation
• Close coordination with the Deploy Team to ensure team is competitive across the 6Ps
• Budget management including overheads and NWM

Requirements

• Ideally 4-5 years experience in brand/product management/marketing (FMCG).
• Strong presentation and communication skills.
• Strong project management skill.
• Ability to work and multitask in a fast paced environment.
• Positive, assertive yet empathetic leadership, with strong ‘soft skills’ to foster collaboration within the team
• Agility with high bias for action, with a passion for high performance

We highly encourage applicants to exclude information on age, gender, and school/s in view of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion. Unilever assesses candidates based on skills, performance, experience and leadership.

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