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.

Unilever is an organisation committed to equity, inclusion and diversity to drive our business results and create a better future, every day, for our diverse employees, global consumers, partners, and communities. We believe a diverse workforce allows us to match our growth ambitions and drive inclusion across the business. At Unilever we are interested in every individual bringing their ‘Whole Self’ to work and this includes you! Thus if you require any support or access requirements, we encourage you to advise us at the time of your application so that we can support you through your recruitment journey.