Brand Manager - Butter

Description
About the Chicago DFA Office
We are a small, diverse team in Chicago, covering trade spending, innovation, insights, brand management, operations, supply chain, product information management and more. Out of the Chicago office, we manage consumer brands with product lines that encompass butter, cheese and cultured products. Those brands include: Plugrà, Borden, Cache Valley Creamery, La Vaquita, Mayfield, Meadow Gold, Hotel Bar, Keller's, Falfurrias, Breakstone and more.
In this role, the Brand Manager will be integral to leading both marketing strategy and tactical execution, performing business analyses and making business recommendations, as well as helping to fuel growth, while partnering with cross-functional leaders. The Brand Manager will lead marketing on our butter businesses, working across a portfolio of brands to own or partner with others to create and implement key initiatives, ultimately driving business performance. The butter portfolio primarily includes: Plugra, Breakstones, and Kellers,
Duties and Responsibilities:
Deliver Business Results

• Collaborate with business unit general managers and sales teams to plan, benchmark, and deliver annual objectives
• Maximize the portfolio and initiatives to achieve short-term and long-term sales, shares, and profit objectives
• Manage portfolio marketing spend, allocation of budget, and project budgets including tracking of estimates and invoices and reconciling actual expenses

Project Management

• Provide leadership to a cross-functional team, guiding multiple and diverse team members toward successful completion of common objectives
• Develop and manage multi-faceted projects including operational, sales, and marketing components from concept to completion with a high level of attention to detail and timeline
• Interface with, provide input to, and establish strong working relationships with agencies and vendors

Brand Strategy

• Participate in the definition and development of butter brand strategies and cross category brand extension capabilities; ensure brand strategies align with overarching business goals
• Speak on behalf of the consumer, macro trends, category shopping, and with in-depth knowledge of the competitive set when creating brand plans and tactical execution
• Develop agency briefs and project timelines to execute projects in support of brand and business strategies
• Lead creation and execution of required plans, including but not limited to digital, social, and PR for key brands in the butter portfolio
• Manage product development from start to finish, together with the innovation team, including concept development, consumer research, product development, and commercialization

Media Planning Delivery

• Development annual media calendar including channel selection, format, and frequency in tandem with agency
• Content calendar and social media management to create effective and efficient always-on presence on owned platforms
• Oversee creative development for media calendar as needed, including video and print shoots and PR activations

Packaging Development

• Own and lead packaging review and approval process, including management of internal and external participants and agencies
• Initiate and manage branded packaging projects including graphics and structure

Insight Analysis Reporting

• Regular category and brand reporting on trends using syndicated sources to business unit leaders and shared with top leadership
• Utilize syndicated and other sources of data to develop expertise on the product, category, consumer, customer and competitive set
• Identify consumer trends to be leveraged in new products and line extensions
• Participate in building methodology and evaluating results from key research projects
• Maintain general awareness of key financial measures and business performance

Requirements

• 5+ years of experience in brand management track FMCG CPG companies with range of skills spanning marketing planning, project management, advertising, consumer promotions, and innovation.
• B.S. in marketing or related field; MBA preferred
• Ability to work effectively and demonstrate strong interpersonal skills in a cross-functional environment, with internal and external team members
• Ability to organize and prioritize work, and manage multiple and varied projects simultaneously
• Ability to clearly communicate ideas, both verbally and in writing, in a fashion that is appropriate to various levels of the organization
• High level of comfort analyzing and synthesizing quantitative information
• 2+ years of prior experience with POS syndicated data - pulling data to create reports, understanding the common metrics to focus on, etc. (IRI experience preferred)
• Willingness to provide insight to business challenges and initiate solutions, as well as to seek own development opportunities
• Prior experience with pricing and P L management
• Hybrid work with several days in the office/week
• Ability to travel, 10-20% of time

An Equal Opportunity Employer