Associate Brand Manager Uncle Ben's

Job description

A mutually rewarding experience.

Work. Realize your ambitions. And realize there’s more to being in business than just making a profit. That’s the Mars philosophy. And the opportunity we offer every one of our Associates. An opportunity to take what you do and make it mean more for you, for those around you and for the planet.  What you get here is challenging, interesting work. You get the tools you need to do a great job and you get to have the best possible people on your side to help you do it. And at the same time as getting to find ways to do business better today than we did it yesterday and driving a great career, you also get to build a more enlightened business and drive sustainability.

Because it’s never just about a single person, a single project or a single brand. It’s about how you can grab everything that’s within your reach here and use it to pursue mutual, long-term gain. It’s about having ideas. And ideals. Being prepared to risk failure because the promise of success means we’ll all be a little better off. It’s that mix of integrity and ambition that makes Mars such a special place to work. And why working here is always about more than just a job.

Mars has net sales of more than $33 billion, operates six business segments including Petcare, Chocolate, Wrigley, Food, Drinks, Symbioscience, and more than 75,000 Associates worldwide that are putting its Principles into action to make a difference for people and the planet through its performance.

Mars brands include: Petcare – PEDIGREE®, ROYAL CANIN®, WHISKAS®, BANFIELD® Pet Hospital, CESAR®, SHEBA®, DREAMIES® and NUTRO®; Chocolate – M&M’S®, SNICKERS®, DOVE®, GALAXY®, MARS®, MILKY WAY® and TWIX®; Wrigley – DOUBLEMINT®, EXTRA®, ORBIT® and 5™ chewing gums, SKITTLES® and STARBURST® candies, and ALTOIDS® AND LIFESAVERS® mints. Food – UNCLE BEN’S®, DOLMIO®, EBLY®, MASTERFOODS®, SEEDS OF CHANGE® and ROYCO®; Drinks – ALTERRA COFFEE ROASTERS™, THE BRIGHT TEA COMPANY™, KLIX® and FLAVIA®; Symbioscience – COCOAVIA® and WISDOM PANEL®.

The Associate Brand Manager is responsible for supporting US growth strategy for Uncle Ben’s Brand. They are responsible for the engagement of the local sales team, category team, and commercial strategy team with compelling growth plans on Dry Rice in line with overall portfolio strategy.  They will have a good deal of interaction with the global Battlefield Development Teams (BDT’s), feeding in key insights and activation requirements for their brands/battlefields.  The associate will interact with external US agency partners, including consumer promotions & digital & public relations agencies and will input into the media plan for their brand as required.

 

Key Responsibilities:
• Responsible for supporting development of local headroom analysis and choices for their sub-brand to influence the global 3-5 year growth and deployment plan.
• Development & tracking of growth levers for their sub-brand (i.e. pricing, ranging, next-best-line, etc.) including recommendations to local and global team for optimization and implementation.
• Responsible for development of local insights to be fed into the global BDT to shape strategy development and innovation needs.
• Management of the volume forecasting for their sub-brand, including consumption forecasting & reporting inclusive of insights, implications & actions to improve overall business performance.
• Functional leadership of the Value Leadership initiative – ensuring savings generation in line with overall fuel efficiency targets for the business.
• Responsible for activation effectiveness monitoring and recommendations to BDT on activation toolkit requirements.
• Collaborate with Sales account managers on customer calls and provide input into sales planning and toolkits.
• Support leadership and engagement of IAT (Integrated Agency Team, consisted of media, public relations, advertising, digital, consumer promotions, etc.) including feedback for annual agency reviews.
• Overall management of the brand budget, including consolidation, reporting and delivery against plan.

 

This role plays a key part in the delivery of the Global Food purpose – Better Food Today, A Better World Tomorrow.  Through their leadership of the sub-brand this role plays a key role within the US marketing team.  They play a key management and engagement role for Mars Food US via their leadership of the BDM team.

• A high degree of cross functional influence is required in this role and excellent working relationships with sales, category, finance, CMI, the US leadership team and the relevant Global Brand Managers in the global team is essential. They will also need to form good relationships with external agency partners especially with the consumer promotions team.  Good understanding of marketing mix best practice – and an ability to set up test and learn scenarios working with Catalyst and is required.  Key working relationships and interfaces include  PMR attendance when required and NA Food Management Team as and when required.
• This role needs to deliver key insight on their sub-brand to the US management team as well as to the global BDT’s and have a broader impact on the Global Food Business growth due to the scale of their brands.

 

Required Competencies:
• Engages Associates: Lead, motivate and influence others throughout the organization. Building effective teams, Motivating others – especially cross functionally within the market
• Delivers Consistent Results: Proven track record of delivery within the market. Priority setting, Drive for results, Command skills.
• Solid understanding of consumer, customer, market and business requirements
• Lead to grow; Create compelling growth strategies and Plans (Essential).  Ability to experiment to learn, extract and share learnings. Can coach other team members around the business model for growth.
• Innovates for Growth; Fuel and roll out success (Essential): Ability to roll out propositions across multiple markets, nurture long-term success by fuelling

Desired profile

Minimum Requirements:
• Bachelor’s degree in related field, with a minimum of 3 years of relevant marketing experience.
• Experience leading cross functional teams
• Experience with Brand management
• Approximately 20% domestic travel

Preferred Qualifications:
• MBA Preferred
• Media mix development experience
• Knowledge of sales/category in the US market.
• Knowledge of/ experience with a multi-market and multi-cultural environment

Mars is an equal opportunity employer and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability status, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law. If you need assistance or an accommodation during the application process because of a disability, it is available upon request. The company is pleased to provide such assistance, and no applicant will be penalized as a result of such a request.