Junior Brand Manager - Fabric Enhancers at Unilever

JOB PURPOSE

• As Brand Manager for Comfort, you will lead the brand growth agenda across innovation, communication, and in-market execution to deliver strong business results and build enduring consumer love. This role requires a marketer who combines strong innovation cycle management and commercial acumen with the ability to create social-first, culturally resonant, and experiential brand demand. You will shape brand strategy, lead cross-functional execution, and bring Comfort’s fragrance, care and sensorial superiority to life across the consumer journey.

WHAT WILL YOUR MAIN RESPONSIBILITIES BE

• Lead Comfort to deliver its Brand Strategic Plan, market share ambitions and financial growth model.
• Own the brand P&L and drive rigorous business performance management, including return on marketing investment.
• Lead end-to-end innovation and renovation projects, from insight generation and concept development through business case creation, launch execution and post-launch evaluation.
• Manage the innovation cycle with excellence, ensuring key projects are delivered on time, in full, and with strong cross-functional alignment across marketing, customer development, supply chain, finance and R&D.
• Translate consumer, shopper, customer and cultural insights into actionable growth opportunities across the 6Ps.
• Build compelling local brand and communication plans that strengthen Comfort’s positioning in fragrance, softness and fabric care.
• Lead social-first campaign development, ensuring content, creators, and channel plans are rooted in South African consumer culture and platform behaviour.
• Drive experiential marketing and activation plans that bring the brand to life through unmissable shopper, retail, sampling and brand experience moments.
• Partner with agencies and internal specialists to develop integrated campaigns across media, content, PR, influencer, retail and experiential touchpoints.
• Ensure strong creative briefing and judgment, with all ideas grounded in brand strategy, consumer insight and measurable business outcomes.
• Work closely with customer teams to unlock execution excellence in market.
• Manage the brand budget with discipline, ensuring investment choices are efficient, effective and aligned to agreed priorities.
• Constantly review initiative performance, campaign effectiveness and in-market execution to identify optimisation opportunities.
• Stay updated on digital trends, consumer behaviour, competitor activity and emerging experiential formats in the South African market.

WHAT YOU WILL NEED TO SUCCEED

EXPERIENCES & QUALIFICATIONS

Minimum:

• Relevant Degree or equivalent
• 4+ years of relevant marketing experience in FMCG, brand building or demand creation
• Proven experience in managing projects from idea through execution and evaluation
• Experience in business performance management, including budget ownership and P&L understanding
• Strong ownership, leadership and stakeholder management

Preferred:

• Experience leading local mix development and executing brand growth strategies
• Experience in innovation and renovation management within a branded business
• Experience in experiential marketing, activations, retail experiences or sampling programmes
• Experience developing social-first campaigns and working with digital, PR, influencer or content ecosystems
• Strong analytical capability in identifying issues, opportunities and growth levers for the brand

SKILLS

Media, Digital and Social Fluency & Technology:

• Understanding of digital marketing channels and tactics to amplify brand experiences, drive online engagement, and track results.
• Social-first thinking and digital fluency across content, creators and platforms
• Design for channel and integrated execution across touchpoints

Brand and Commercial Management Fundamentals:

• Strong business and financial acumen
• Brand performance analysis and campaign measurement
• Consumer and customer focus – curiosity, insight mining and the ability to translate insights into actionable plans
• Innovation cycle management and project leadership
• Creative briefing and judgment
• Brand activity planning and brand guardianship
• Strong understanding and management of S&OP
• Ability to assess business challenges, articulate these clearly, and influence stakeholders across cross-functional teams
• Growth mindset – a winning, competitive mindset

Experiential Marketing Expertise:

• Creative Concept Development: Generating innovative and engaging brand experience concepts that align with brand objectives, target audience/social cohort and budget.
• Event Planning & Execution: Strong organisational and logistical skills to plan, manage, and execute brand activations, events, and retail experiences flawlessly, whether online or offline (e.g. pop-up events, integration with influencer partnerships, interactive digital campaigns, sampling experience).
• Online and Offline Experience: While the role requires a digital-first approach, proven success in designing and executing impactful brand activations in both online and offline environments and touchpoints.