Strategic Marketing Manager - Stills (Juice and Innovation) , The Coca-Cola Company

The closing date for this position is Monday, 6 January 2014

• Provide marketing leadership to TCCS across 30 countries identifying, creating and prioritizing profitable volume opportunities for Juice, RTD dairy, Hot beverages and emerging brand opportunities
• Develop and execute marketing strategies and integrated programs that maximize volume and long-term value of the Stills categories
• Leads development of consumer strategies and ensures that all plans/activities are integrated with Franchise and bottling partners
• Lead alignment of marketing plans with Franchise and bottling partners
• Leads and tracks execution metrics of marketing plans with Franchise and bottling partners
• Acts as a Company Ambassador in external events with key stakeholders
• Drive innovative business solutions by developing an innovation pipeline in selected white spaces across stills categories to ensure total NARTD growth for the BU
• Act as BU lead on relevant Group and Global charters, collaborating with franchise and key country leads to provide inclusive BU feedback and direction to charter leads to ensure program relevance.
• Leads, motivate and develop capabilities of the System Stills Marketing Team and provide strategic marketing leadership and consultancy to regions (where applicable).
• Provide overall leadership to BU OBPPC architecture relating to the stills portfolio, collaborating with markets around the relevant execution at a country level.

Key Duties and Responsibilities

• Develop 3-year portfolio strategy & innovation pipeline; Communicate and drive the Stills Strategy across the BU; Manage the business unit portfolio as a business in terms of drivers, opportunities and return; Use financial insight to make principle based strategic decisions which benefit the business unit; Define Portfolio Segmentation for the business unit; Approve Portfolio and Brand Strategies in line with agreed segmentation; Align strategy (with all key stakeholders, including bottlers) across the Business Unit to ensure value for the system; develop stills innovation pipeline
• Deliver results – Develop and manage team structure to support strategic direction; Establish and drive volume, share, and profit objectives; Anticipate situations and develop approaches that maximise the business opportunities; Integrate all marketing efforts (advertising, promotions, experiential, marketing assets…) within a consistent overall brand/Marketing plan, including Service Units; Define marketing DME requirements and proper allocation across markets.Ensure global best practice is effectively communicated to manage risks and impact to the business; Actively observe and ensure adherence to quality standards across all initiatives across the business unit; Ensure advertising executions meet agreed success criteria across business unit; Provide support to Regions (where applicable) in implementation and planning.
• Develop with the Bottler, through marketing operations teams, an effective implementation plan for all Stills marketing activities; Implement appropriate tracking procedures to ensure proper execution of these activities; Monitor plan execution in consistency with TCCC standards; Ensure seamless consumer marketing information flow within the system (from/to Bottler and within TCCC departments).
• Category innovation – Lead the innovation agenda for the portfolio through identification and execution of insight driven opportunities to engage consumers and customers. This includes portfolio expansion, media innovation and acceleration of digital, mobile and social media engagement platforms. Accelerate scale of Franchise and country innovation through rapid sharing and adoption of best practices across all 30 markets.

Communication Complexities

Internal/External Contacts

Nature and Purpose of Communication

• BU Marketing Director
• GM Stills
• BU “specialist” roles
• Marketing
• Franchise Teams
• Technical
• Finance
• Public Affairs and Communications
• Legal
• Customer and Commercial Leadership
• Group Stills and Global Juice / Stills Directors
• Bottler Management
• Bottler commercial and operations team
• Business Unit Leadership Team
• Third Parties: Suppliers/Agencies/ stakeholders incl NGO

• Significant stills strategy changes/opportunities
• Up-dates on stills category performance as well must win battles
• Appraising of key BU developments as well as seeking guidance on best practice
• Providing thought leadership on how to unearth key strategic opportunities
• Trademark protection and Company image projection

Analysis

• Analyses conceptual information and devises new methods and processes by designing highly complex management and business information systems that requires state of the art research and information systems technology.
• Marketing Research Application: Ability to leverage research results into actionable marketing and business needs
• Forecasting: Knowledge of and ability to apply information and procedures used to forecast consumer behaviours

Judgement and Decision Making

• Understands the external environment (competitive and market) and identifies new sources of opportunity.
• Interrogates data to identify core business levers.
• Balances facts with intuition to distil complex opportunities into compelling business cases.
• Leverages analytical rigor to prioritize and allocate resources effectively.
• Anticipates future trends to engage and delight consumers

Innovation

• Evaluate feasibility of new products by pre-product testing
• Validation of key product/pack/price innovations across channels
• Crafts a vision for what the brand/category/market could be
• Demonstrates judgement to define a compelling core creative idea
• Pursues innovation and change with a mind-set of continuous improvement

Supervisory Responsibilities

Assistant Brand Manager

Supporting team: IMC team, Commercial Finance Manager, Operations Marketing Teams, Knowledge and Insights Teams. Asset Teams, Advertising Teams, Media Teams, Mobile / Digital and social media manager

Key partners: Advertising and communication agencies, research houses, special event agencies, experiential marketing agencies and PR consultants

Qualifications/ Competencies/ Skills

Technical Skills: 

• Manage Portfolio Marketing Mix
• Monitors Development of Brand Essentials
• Manage Portfolio Commercial Mix
• Monitor Portfolio Communication Strategy
• Monitor New Brand Development Process
• Secure Bottler Integration

Generic Competencies: Refer to Competency Directory and Provide between 3 – 7 of the highest priority competencies

• Building Value Based Relationships
• Building Sustainable Organisational Capabilities
• Leveraging And Respecting Others
• Problem Analysis / Problem Solving
• Strategic Decision Making
• Work In Teams
• Manage Project Management Process
• Translate Information And Data
• Manage Budgets
• Determine Financial Impact

Related Experience Requirements/ Qualifications

8-10 years of experience, at least 5 year as a Research Manager in FMCG industry
Brand / project management experience
Commercial experience with specific strength on OBBPC development and plans commercialization.
Experience in strategic planning and portfolio management
Some General Business Management skills would be advisable.

Educational Requirements

A Bachelors Degree

Cultural Diversity

• Need to understand cultural differences in different markets to translate data into meaningful business insights. Has worked most of his/her career in a collaborative working situation, in which different viewpoints from a range of stakeholders needed to be taken into account to arrive at a productive solution.
• Has worked most of his/her career in a collaborative working situation, in which different viewpoints from a range of stakeholders needed to be taken into account to arrive at a productive solution

Working Conditions
Normal

Travel Requirements
Significant travel may be required within and outside the Business Unit

Additional Information

In a Multi-Country Business unit like CEWA where there is a supporting Franchise Marketing Team this role will be key in providing strategic direction and guidelines for the Business unit which in turn will be localized by the Franchise Marketing Team. 

Location: Nairobi/ BU geography 

Honesty and integrity have always been cornerstone values of The Coca-Cola Company. Our passion for people of integrity mirrors our spirited drive for total quality in our brands. These and other elements allow the company to sustain strategic practices and drive business performance. The Personnel Integrity Assurance Program is another step toward making The Coca-Cola Company the premier workplace. 

This process includes a pre-employment background investigation that applies to all applicantsemployeesand contractors of the company. The scope of this inquiry may cover such elements as educationemployment historya criminal history checkreference checksand a pre-employment drug screen. 

APPLY