Media Activation Manager at Unilever

About the role

The role aims to drive the adoption and continued excellence of data driven marketing practices within Unilever and our partner agencies. This involve planning data led campaigns, owning the process of implementation and optimisation, and ensuring the health of the infrastructure in place to deliver these plans in a seamless, automated way.

This role involves close work with the market teams plus other agencies. There is extensive cross-functional, cross-market working with an extensive range of stakeholders. This role does not have any direct reports: rather, it requires one to manage a large external agency team and to co-work effectively with a wide range of colleagues. A part of the role is also to co-create and share training material and learning that will increase marketers’ capabilities in the changing environment. The role will be South Africa based supporting the Africa Digital Media Manager in delivering world class Data Driven Marketing for the region covering Southern Africa, West Africa and East Africa Media team requirements; South Africa being the main operational market, while supporting the execution and knowledge transfer for Nigeria & Kenya.

Key tasks

• Campaign Planning –

  • Responsible for leading the full funnel media agenda (awareness, engagement and conversion) – Ensure campaign journey developed across key channels per audience sub segment, leveraging past learnings

  • Identify key audience segments and ensure they are turned into actionable media plans and ensuring integration into holistic channel plans feeding into the Media blueprint

  • Identify opportunities for data collection (based on brand data strategy), value exchange, 1st party data leverage along the campaign journey per segment

  • Connecting with measurement team to ensure data loops are being fed back onto plans. Responsible for leading development of AB variant testing plan and agency briefing

  • Responsible for fostering partnerships with media JBP players to drive data led marketing use cases - explore new partnerships and expand current ones with increased data focus

• Campaign deployment and Optimisation

  • Ensure media plan in flight optimization and drive campaign performance based on agreed KPIs with Agency Partner;

  • Pinpoint trends in the data from DSPs and analytics suites/dashboards and turn them into optimizations and/or actionable items

  • Oversee Media agency to deliver following

    • Execution against 1st pty data and augment with 2nd and 3rd pty data aligned to brand JTBD to execute real time data led marketing

    • Inflight optimisation of communications plan, dynamic, real time allocation of budgets based on KPIs, including AB testing                                                                                                                                                

  • Execution of predefined triggers and plan - Deploy MMF / Tentpole activations like Singles day/Black Friday/ market events /tentpoles/planning for agility command centres and drive brand opportunities during these events.

• Operations health and excellence

  • Responsible for media operations and governance around the use and deployment and collection of data by the media teams and agencies

  • Lead the media tagging process with media agency including naming conventions, accutics process, ensuring creative agencies are briefing the tags in correctly and that the tags are firing in the Data Management Platform.

  • Oversee Media agency to deliver following

    • Deploy Data Driven Marketing via digital media channels, with clear KPIs on increased efficiency, better brand safety

    • Deploy search across the full consumer journey, with increased efficiency and effectiveness across multiple audiences

    • Responsible for the capture of quality 1st party data, in line with agreed timelines and processes set by Unilever

• Create capability/training sessions to upskill brand teams on digital marketing. Scale best practice and learning as part of Agency process

• Regional Africa Media projects and execution

  • Support the Africa Digital Media Manager in driving and execution on the Data Driven Marketing requirements across the markets we serve with the main market being South Africa and the secondary markets being Nigeria and Kenya.

  • Supporting South Africa with best-in-class strategy and operational excellence that raises the ceiling in setting the regional and global benchmarks.

  • Support the West Africa and the East Africa Media teams in executing remote Data Driven Marketing campaigns from South Africa, for Nigeria and Kenya ensuring that there is a knowledge transfer that raises the floor in terms of what the markets are doing today. 

  • Ensure that the regional media agencies deliver on the Digital Media Strategies, Digital Mandatories for Unilever, campaign excellence and reporting standards.

Skills and Experience

Primary traits (required)

• Passion for the social & digital world and its implications for business. Very high willingness to learn .

• High “bias for action” and leadership. Right Mental Attitude – open communication & walk the talk

• Four or more years’ experience and superior knowledge of media, digital, programmatic, performance marketing or similar. Probably gained in a leading multinational media agency, advertiser or global digital platform.

• An excellent English language communicator with senior stakeholders, peers and reports (conversational and presentational)

• Excellent listening skills and the ability to understand and articulate customer needs in business and more technical vocabulary, e.g. to convert a Marketer’s request into a stimulating media brief.

• Experience managing relationships in a large, multinational, matrix organisation.

• Experience working as or with marketing stakeholders/agencies and an understanding of their likely challenges and information requirements.

Secondary traits (“nice to have”)

• Experienced project manager, particularly in terms of project planning, forecasting demand and managing human resource accordingly

• Hands-on experience of eCommerce and Social Commerce, from a media perspective.

• Facilitation and capability building skills. Able to contribute to a significant change programme.

• Cross-cultural sensitivity and working capability.

• Organisational change-agent mind-set

• Agile and Scrum experience is a plus

• Experience with Adobe stack is beneficial

Key Requirements

• Relevant Degree or equivalent

• Four or more years’ experience and superior knowledge of media, digital, programmatic, performance marketing or similar. Probably gained in a leading multinational media agency, advertiser or global digital platform

• Minimum 3 years of experience in marketing analytics

Unilever is an organisation committed to equity, inclusion and diversity to drive our business results and create a better future, every day, for our diverse employees, global consumers, partners, and communities. We believe a diverse workforce allows us to match our growth ambitions and drive inclusion across the business. At Unilever we are interested in every individual bringing their ‘Whole Self’ to work and this includes you! Thus if you require any support or access requirements, we encourage you to advise us at the time of your application so that we can support you through your recruitment journey.