Global Assistant Brand Manager - Ponds

Job Title: Global Assistant Brand Manager - Ponds

Work Location: Mumbai HO

Function/BU: Beauty & Wellbeing, Marketing

BUSINESS CONTEXT:

Pond’s is Unilever’s largest face care brand globally, present in over 50 countries, making it one of the Power Brands. Pond’s was founded by pharmacist Theron T. Pond in the year 1846. Through the years, the brand has been Pioneering Innovation - from Pond’s Cold Cream & Vanishing Cream being the first of its kind when it was launched, to Pond’s Super Light Gel, which disrupted the moisturizing category. While the skin care ingredients have been the talk of the industry in the last few years, with Niacinamide being at the forefront, Pond’s was the first brand to use Niacinamide in their formulas since 1978, way ahead of the competition. In 2024, Pond’s went through a major transformation with Peony that redefined the Brand globally, elevating Desire, Science & Purpose like never before.

Primary Skills/ Competencies:

Consumer Intimacy

• Put the consumer at the heart of all strategy and execution.
• Identify real consumer problems and solve them using insightful innovations & impactful communications to drive brand growth.

Project Management

• Work with R&D, Supply Chain, and finance teams to bring to life the innovation pipeline and ensure the timely delivery of projects.
• Ensure timely delivery of projects and help deliver business metrics of turnover, gross margin, and share.
• Co-create mixes with partners across all functions, both internal (R&D, SC, Finance, Procurement, etc.) and external (Creative, Pack Design, Consumer Research).

Mix Design & Execution

• Co-create the comms strategy for the brand and bring it to life across all campaigns based on true consumer insights.
• Work with creative agencies and production houses to bring alive brand JTBDs through the process of issuing briefs, providing feedback, consumer testing, and final production.
• Create Brand Experience Toolkits to enable 360 deployments of campaigns across multiple media channels.
• Collaborate with R&D to create winning products on core and innovations to help drive greater loyalty.
• Create pack designs with design agencies based on consumer insight and trade/channel realities.

Roles & Responsibilities:

• Develop the deployment plan. This would include end-to-end project management, working closely with cross-functional network teams, and delivering the project OTIF.
• Work on communication development for mixes end-to-end, liaising with multiple agencies to deliver best-in-class, social first

Required Qualifications:

• Master’s degree in marketing or business Administration OR Equivalent.
• Minimum 3+ years of experience in marketing 
• Strong interest in the world of beauty
• Preferred - experience in Social First Crafting & Planning
• Be bold in thought and brave in action.
• Have a healthy disregard for the status quo.
• Strong consumer intimacy to unravel true consumer insights.
• Experience in working with cross-functional teams, both internal and external.
• Strong Project Management skills.
• Monitors progress & takes action. 

Key Stakeholders:

• Marketing, BD, BU, CMI, R&D, GLOBAL BRAND TEAM, LOCAL DEPLOYMENT TEAMS, NETWORK TEAM.

Core aspects underpinning all skills: Creativity, Empathy, Obsession with brands & consumers, Keen interest in skincare, Sense of Aesthetics, Analytical Thinking & Rigour.