NGP Brand Executive

About us

We're a truly international company, forth 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

The NGP (Next Generation Products) Brand Executive role is a position within the UK&I Cluster, reporting to the NGP Brand & Portfolio Manager, working within a wider team of Brand Executives and Brand Managers. Due to the NGP scope, the role holder will be focussing on e-vapour and heated tobacco brands only as the business scales its footprint in this area, with a number of initiatives planned within the next 12-18 months.

The NGP Brand Executive role works specifically within NGP project teams to support the NGP Brand Manager. They work closely with the Insights team, Category teams and creative agencies to translate brand strategies into actionable guidelines, assets and toolkits. NGP Brand Executives confidently and independently access and analyse consumer insights to identify commercial opportunities and innovation requirements, sharing these in a meaningful way with key decision makers. They also support the NGP Brand Manager in developing business cases and work closely with agency colleagues to provide direction, address questions and resolve issues on specific projects in order to deliver creative advantage over competitors.

The NGP Brand Executives will work closely with a tight team of colleagues who are also working on NGP in order to deliver against tight timescales and an ambition to scale NGP in FY23 and beyond. Likewise they will work closely with Planning Execs and with Project Co-ordinators to ensure all brand guidelines, assets and toolkits are delivered on-time and aligned to the project plan. The NGP Brand Executives will work closely with colleagues within the Category and Innovation teams to explore and define brand innovation opportunities, building the business case for approval before passing the project management and realisation of the initiative over to the Planning Executives.

Key accountabilities

• Support the development of the brand strategy to include brand positioning, commercial brand ambition as well as brand quality strategy.
• Provide support to develop and define long-term 3y initiatives pipeline, with activation toolkit for each initiative (multi-market brands and single market brands).
• Provide support to develop 1 year drumbeat of initiatives (portfolio and equity) across relevant markets, along with a toolkit (in collaboration with Trade Marketing)
• Assess brand health & performance, barriers and opportunity based on consumer typology target for each brand.
• Review product portfolio (incl. NPD and de-listings)
• Localise assets
• Monitor and benchmark competitor activities, category trends and consumer habits, recommending plans and actions to capture opportunities
• To ensure effective collaboration across the cluster and central functions where necessary, to drive excellence, expertise and best practice.
• Develops working relationships within the cluster and helps represent the team at meetings and cross functional projects. Leading on small brand projects.
• 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.
• Follows governance, processes and regulatory structures.

Critical Decisions

Own

• Define target consumer typology for each brand
• Define brand commercial ambition
• Define long-term 3y initiatives pipeline
• Define 1 year drumbeat of initiatives
• Define innovation requirements

Input

• Define cross-category Portfolio Playbook and Price Guardrails
• Define innovation requirements
• In-market execution plan
• Demand forecast
• Define actions to course-correct against in-market execution plan

Trust

• Define brand-agnostic innovation requirements
• Define cross-category Portfolio Playbook and Price Guardrails
• Priority sales performance improvement levers

Key Capabilities

• Brand Strategy and planning
• Business case development
• Create and develop creative material

Key Relationships

Internal (excluding direct team and manager)

• All functions within UK&I Cluster
• Central Marketing & Portfolio Management teams
• Category teams
• Global Insight

 External

• External agencies

Education, Qualifications, Skills and Experience

Essential

• Educated to degree level in relevant field
• Brand/product experience
• 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

• 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, bonus scheme, pension and 25 days holiday (with an additional 4 days on top to cover the Christmas period and bank holidays). and hybrid work.

Next steps

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