Senior Retail Marketing Manager

Job Title: Senior Retail Marketing Manager (Maternity cover)
Location: Kingston, United Kingdom
Function: Marketing

ABOUT UNILEVER & FOODS

With 3.4 billion people in over 190 countries using our products every day, Unilever is a business that makes a real impact on the world. Work on brands that are loved and improve the lives of our consumers and the communities around us. At Unilever, your career will be a unique journey, grounded in our inclusive, collaborative, and flexible working environment. We don’t believe in the ‘one size fits all’ approach and instead we will equip you with the tools you need to shape your own future.

Foods is the largest cell in Unilever Europe with a multibillion span in the BG-led markets and consistently growing USG ahead of target. As Foods, we want to be true market makers, with a strategy to drive volume growth and share for our categories. As a Business Unit we have high ambitions for our 6 BG led markets where we believe in empowering the markets and create the right ammunition to win the hearts and the minds of our consumers and customers. Foods Europe is the birthplace of Unilever’s biggest and oldest heritage brands such as Knorr and market leading local jewels such as Pot Noodle and Marmite. It is also the home of the world’s largest Retail Alliances and Buying Groups, creating opportunities for industry leading strategic partnerships, as well as complex negotiations and combative trading environments. We have 10 Customers delivering high value TO annually and a winning strategy focused on growing the Category by winning Seasons and Occasions across all generations.

At the heart of Foods Europe’s bold mission is Foods UKI, a multimillion business, the 6th largest market for Foods globally and the largest in Europe across the priority category verticals in retail. Each of the 3 priority category verticals (Condiments, Cooking Aids and Mini Meals) in the UKI cluster is a priority cell in Foods’ Top 25 global priority cells. The UKI business is either #1 or #2 in share in our category verticals (Mini Meals #1, Condiments #2, Cooking Aids #2). Our power brands, Hellmann’s and Knorr are a priority focus, alongside strong local jewels, such as Pot Noodle, Marmite and Colman’s. These local jewel brands make up more than half of the UKI’s turnover and provide our customer teams significant leverage and scale in customer engagement and the ability to win in execution. We lead with a ‘One Team, One Dream’ mindset across our UKI Foods team, which alongside our ‘Foodie Culture’ has created a team we are all proud to work within. We have also built a reputation of being thought leaders in the digital and marketing space, with the UKI team leading the way in Social First and Retail Media.

JOB PURPOSE

This role sits in the UKI Foods CMC (Content, Media, Commerce) team, as a key member to help us grow our business together. CMC team members are marketing and commerce experts responsible for creating unmissable omnichannel experiences; from creating the power of a 6P strategy across in store and dCommerce, to omnichannel retail marketing, from brand media to retail media management, from digital to offline content production. We are an energized, young spirited, integrated team that sets the business up to take full advantage of the growth opportunities and thrives to stay ahead of the curve.

ABOUT THE ROLE

Retail Media has seen exponential growth over the past few years, and this role represents a fantastic opportunity to get right to the heart of this momentum and shape the changing way in which we buy our media through RMNs (Retail Media Networks). The incumbent will be responsible for the delivery of the Commerce pillar, over-seeing the strategic development and deployment of retail media across in store, onsite and offsite channels. The incumbent will also have ultimate responsibility for our Foods dCommerce performance, across the UK & Ireland.

This role is the key link between the three Foods’ Verticals, our 1UL Execution team, and our CBD teams. The incumbent will occasionally attend monthly BTMs to represent the CMC, sharing media plans, results and impact. They will also attend forums with the 1UL Execution team where they will represent the Foods BU & will work collaboratively with the team to deliver best-in-class media plans.

The role holder will also manage a team employees across WL2 and WL1, each delivering their own specialism in a particular channel. This is an ambitious, high performing team requiring a passionate leader to continue steering them to success.

MAIN RESPONSIBILITIES

• Plans and manages the annual retail media budget in alignment with Foods strategy, brand JTBDs and the BMI framework. Responsible for ensuring accurate forecasting and that investment is spent within budget.

• Owns and manages the Foods Holistic Plan, working closely with the 1UL Execution team to ensure it is up to date & within budge

• Leads retail media omnichannel team, focused on delivering best in class shopper marketing plans and differentiated channel activity

• Responsible for briefing the 1UL Execution team on the brand JTBD with a clearly defined role for Retail Media within the broader campaign strategy & media ecosystem.

• Responsible for overall performance of retail media campaigns, and sharing in monthly forums

• Lead for improved creative excellence of Retail Media, ensuring key visuals pass UPOSM testing and are delivered on time

• Lead the Retail Media evaluation process for Foods, ensuring the media plans are optimal based on historical performance

• Collaborate with the Content team to feed social insights into retail media planning and deliver the Social First strategy from end to end

• The key link between CMC, CSP and the Retail Execution team for Foods

• Ensures the voice of the shopper, insights and competitor activity is widely understood in BU Foods

WHAT YOU NEED TO SUCCEED

This role is suited to a collaborative leader with extensive experience in marketing and/or retail media, with a particular spike and passion for driving change. The right candidate will be able to demonstrate a wide range of capabilities and attributes including:

• Project management; with experience leading cross functional internal & external teams in a fast-paced environment

• Strong business acumen; proven experience of managing large, complex budgets

• A passion for the shopper; curious about Shoppers and their behaviours

• Strong Retail Media understanding; experience working with Retail Media Networks. Creative; be able to fully own the UPOSM process with multiple stakeholders

• Commercially minded; played a combination of commercial and media roles and can bring together media, performance and dComm strategies

• Tenacity and sense of urgency; the ability to make things happen quickly with large, less nimble partners and/or teams

• Strong communicator; Superior verbal and written communications skills with extreme attention to detail

• How to simplify complexity; ability to interpret complex business challenges and make informed decisions that drive successful activation plans

• Effective people leader; proven line management experience to be able to maximise output from a highly ambitious team

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What we offer

Whilst the role is advertised on a full-time basis, we would be happy to discuss possible flexible working options and what this may look like for you. We strive to achieve a family-friendly and inclusive workplace and to, above all, create possibilities for all. 

Diversity at Unilever is about inclusion, embracing differences, creating possibilities and growing together for better business performance. We embrace diversity in our workforce. 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. We are also more than happy to provide reasonable adjustments during our application and interview process to enable you to be present your best self. To find out more, including about our Employee Resource Groups, please click here Equity, Diversity & Inclusion (unilever.com).