Marketing Planning Executive – FTC 9 months

About us:

We're a truly international company, fourth largest in our industry and operating across 120 markets. An inclusive, innovative global FMCG business supported by over 27,500 employees. As we embrace a new era of growth, we are transforming. Our ways of working and culture are driven by a challenger mindset, constantly questioning the status quo. Our agility and entrepreneurial spirit, alongside award winning development programmes, enable innovation and success while creating exciting and rewarding career choices.

As we move forward, our customers will be at the heart of what we do, evolving to needs and expectations and committing to a more meaningful contribution to harm reduction by building a successful NGP business. Integral to our long-term success is our sustainability strategy, behaving responsibly and supporting our ambitions, all underpinned by high governance.

Encouraging inclusion at local levels and supporting a developing and robust diversity agenda globally, we’re fully committed to creating and maintaining an environment that celebrates and respects difference.

The Role:

Location: Hybrid / Bristol

Salary: £34k - £50k dependent on experience

The Planning Executive is a key strategic project management role within the UK&I Cluster, reporting to the Senior Planning Manager.

The role holder will act as a cross functional leader across brand, digital, trade marketing, I&I and finance, ensuring that all brand and product initiatives are properly managed and consistently communicated from end to end. They will also be directly responsible whilst owning the assessment of manufacturing and commercial feasibility for new initiatives, ensuring head office and manufacturing functions prioritise the UKI cluster, and work with the Project Coordinators to ensure seamless project delivery through the supply chain. They will also support the brand planning process, create integrated brand activity calendars, set brand & campaign KPIs and monitor performance across all categories.

Working closely with Brand Managers within the Brand & Portfolio Team, the Planning Executives will transform brand & portfolio strategies into actionable integrated brand plans and omni-channel marketing campaigns. They will then work with Trade Marketing to ensure those plans are aligned to trade segment initiatives and sales cycle plan.

The role will also be responsible for setting brand KPIs and working with the Insights function to monitor performance. They will leverage targeted consumer knowledge (including equity strategy, activation and communication) to ensure the team can drive success across each consumer segment. Likewise they will confidently and independently assess the effectiveness of brand initiatives post-launch and make recommendations to relevant shareholders for improvement or course correction.

The Planning Executive with work closely with external agencies to plan and deliver marketing campaigns, including the selection and booking of media where required. They will also work closely with the Consumer Engagement team to plan D2C activity before handing the plan over to the Consumer Engagement team for execution in channels they own (e.g. online, social, consumer service).

Principal Accountabilities:

• Develop integrated brand calendar and provide input into the cycle plan, owned and created by the trade planning teams.
• Working with Trade Marketing, develop integrated consumer activation & experience plan to target consumers in line with agreed consumer and brand strategy.
• Ownership of ensuring commercials, timings and head office investment are signed off with CLT and through coordinating business case / BAP preparation.
• Develop brand & campaign KPIs, monitor performance and share with key decision makers as well as recommend course corrections as required.
• Conduct or initiate analytical investigations into brand and market dynamics for specific brand activity
• Ensure agile response to changes in market environment.
• Ensure all projects are delivered on time, cost and quality while monitoring performance ensuring any risks and issues are highlighted and necessary corrections made.
• Ensure governance, processes and regulatory structures are followed within the team.
• Develops working relationships within the cluster and helps represent the team at meetings and cross functional projects. Leading in small Brand communications and projects.
• Supporting the Senior Planning Manager to ensure that key stakeholders are kept up to date with key information on brands and consumers to support delivery of cluster objectives.
• Assists in Brand planning workshops and strategy planning where appropriate.
• Uses challenging, innovative and analytical thinking to recommend new activities & propositions that add value to the cluster.
• Supports approved projects, delivering against targets and communicating risks and progress with guidance.

 Critical Decisions:

Own

• Define integrated brand initiative calendar and communicate updates regularly to senior stakeholders
• Define omni-channel D2C campaign plan (in collaboration with Trade Marketing on BA activity)
• Define brand experience plan
• Understand and assess manufacturing complexity arising from new product initiatives
• Manage overall timing plan for all initiatives
• Understand cost vs reward and business focus to validate brand and product initiative commercial viability
• Coordination of business case or BAP creation if needed for an initiative

 Input

• Define innovation requirements (Multi-Market brands and single market brands)
• Define innovation requirements (Multi-region brands)
• In-market execution plan
• Demand forecast by SKU
• Define actions to course-correct against in-market execution plan

 Key Capabilities:

• Marketing planning and activation
• Campaign design & management
• KPI setting and performance management
• Brand Strategy & Planning
• Assessing commercial opportunity vs costs
• Business case development

Key Relationships:

Internal:

All functions within UK&I Cluster

External:

External agencies

Education, Qualifications, Skills & Experience:

• Brand/product experience
• Experience of using customer and market insight to drive commercial gain
• Ability to think laterally and creatively, to deliver ideas, initiatives and contribute to discussion.
• Understanding of brand management
• Analytical skills and some strategic thinking to question and recommend brand strategies
• Good communication and presentation skills
• Highly collaborative

Desirable

• Educated to degree level in relevant field
• Experience of marketing within a restricted industry (e.g. tobacco, gambling)
• Experience of using customer and market insight to drive commercial gain

What we offer:

Imperial Brands offer a competitive package of salary, hybrid 50/50 working policy, bonus scheme, pension and 25 days holiday (with an additional 4 days on top to cover the Christmas period and bank holidays).

Next steps:

Interested applicants should apply with their CV highlighting their suitability for the role.