Passion for Marketing is essential!
Unilever continues to rewrite the marketing rulebook, developing some of the world’s biggest brands, creating groundbreaking campaigns and finding new ways of connecting with consumers.
Marketing requires an expert knowledge of your brand, the people who use it and how to communicate with them. So as a marketer you need to develop a sound understanding of our business goals, spend time with consumers learning about their needs, preferences and lifestyles, and absorb and analyze a wealth of information concerning market and consumer trends.
You’ll focus on identifying opportunities to grow your brand, which will involve working closely with professionals from a number of different areas.
Externally, you’ll team up with agencies specializing in PR, advertising, pack design, in-store theatre and consumer activation as well as with retailers. Internally, you’ll be in constant contact with our Brand Innovation Centres across the world, Supply Chain and, to ensure implementation runs smoothly, Customer Management teams.
In everything you do you’ll need to be passionate about your brand and able to inspire people around you. You’ll need a clear vision of where you want your brand to go and the ability to create plans based on a combination of sound analysis and gut instinct. And while you won’t need to write advertisements or design in-store merchandise, you’ll need to be able to judge creative work – so lateral and creative thinking is absolutely vital.
So what is Marketing at Unilever?
Marketing covers all activities relating to the development and bringing to market of branded products, services and solutions that meet real consumer needs.
The purpose of the marketing function is to achieve profitable growth by building a focussed portfolio of powerful, well differentiated and value adding brands that anticipate market opportunities and meet the everyday needs of consumers everywhere.
Within Marketing, there are 4 processes.
- Generate Insight: engaging with the consumer to understand and act upon the motivating factors that drive brand choice and usage behaviour.
- Build Brands: formulating category/brand portfolio strategies and building our brand equities through compelling positioning and communication.
- Innovate: translating strategy, consumer insight and technologies into consumer relevant innovations that are rolled out fast.
- Activate: bringing the brand portfolio to life in the local marketplace by creative implementation of the brand strategies.
What do Marketing people do in Unilever?
Marketing roles are varied, and cover both operational and strategic activities. Local roles include Brand Managers, Senior Brand Managers, Consumer and Market Insight Managers, Group Brand Managers, Marketing Operations Managers, Development Managers, Assistant Brand Managers, Marketing Assistants and Brand Directors.
Marketers identify and define brand personality according to consumer requirements and aspirations. They look after the brands on a daily basis: identifying, planning and organizing activities that boost their image and increase their exposure. At Unilever, many of our brands are market leaders and maintaining leadership position in competitive market is an even tougher challenge than the climb to leadership position.
As market leaders, you will continually have to create, develop and present the brand so memorably that is stands out against fierce competition. You’ll use in-depth knowledge of your consumer and their behaviours to enrich the core brand mixes with value-adding communication activities, maximising their impact in the marketplace. You’ll work with research, advertising, design and PR agencies to create "top of mind" brand awareness and loyalty.
So what type of person is suited to Marketing?
In Marketing we are looking for entrepreneurs, people with a passion who can inspire a team towards a common goal. As a marketer within Unilever you will be at the centre of all the action. You will be required to utilise your full range of skills – analytical, creative & interpersonal - to ensure that your goals are reached.
Career paths within Marketing
In addition to your ongoing personal development, as a marketeer you go through a number of career ‘building blocks’.
As a graduate we will invest heavily in you to give you broad marketing experience, covering brand equity and brand communication, planning and interpreting market research and data, understanding consumer insight and brand performance assessment). Professionally we will be developing you in key building blocks such as Brand equity management, brand activation, consumer insight, brand communication, and project management.
Typically a graduate in their first 2-3 years will experience 2-3 varying roles across Brand Development, for example as a Marketing Assistant, Consumer Insight Assistant, Marketing Operations Assistant, Customer/Channel activation Assistant and Assistant Brand Manager. This breadth of experience provides a strong foundation for subsequent more senior appointments.
Qualifications for Marketing:
All degree disciplines are welcome - what counts is a passion and flair for Marketing.
