Junior Brand Manager - Fabric Enhancers

Unilever is currently hiring for: Junior Brand Manager - Fabric Enhancers

Function: Marketing
Reports to: Marketing Manager
Scope: Southern Africa HC – Comfort
Location: Durban (La Lucia Ridge Office) / Johannesburg (Katherine Street Office)

Terms & Conditions: Full time

ABOUT UNILEVER

With 3.4 billion people in over 190 countries using our products every day, Unilever is a business that makes a real impact on the world. Work on brands that are loved and improve the lives of our consumers and the communities around us. We are driven by our purpose: to make sustainable living commonplace, and it is our belief that doing business the right way drives superior performance. At the heart of what we do is our people – we believe that when our people work with purpose, we will create a better business and a better world.

At Unilever, your career will be a unique journey, grounded in our inclusive, collaborative, and flexible working environment. We don’t believe in the ‘one size fits all’ approach and instead we will equip you with the tools you need to shape your own future.

HOME CARE SOUTHERN AFRICA

Home Care is on a mission to deliver a Clean Future through superior, sustainable, and great value household cleaning and laundry products. In Home Care we aim to turn chores into extraordinary moments that do not cost the earth.

ABOUT COMFORT

Comfort is a trusted fabric conditioner brand with long-lasting freshness, softness and fabric care at its heart. In South Africa, Comfort is positioned around superior fragrance delivery and fabric care benefits, supported by concentrated formats and fragrance technology designed to create lasting impressions and sensorial appeal. Comfort plays in a dynamic fabric enhancers category where premiumisation, innovation, fragrance credentials, and culturally relevant demand creation are key drivers of growth.

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.

Leadership
You are energized by delivering fantastic results. You are an example to others – both your results and your resilience. You are constantly on the lookout for better ways to do things, engaging and collaborating with others along the way. As an individual you are the one responsible for your own wellbeing and delivering high standards of work. You must also focus on the Consumer and what they need. You are humble and have your head up, looking around to interpret evidence and data smartly, spot issues and opportunities to make things better.

Unilever behaviours
CARE DEEPLY: We care deeply about how consumers experience our brands every day, everywhere; about our people’s growth and development and our impact on the planet. We care about our performance, to a point where it hurts when we don’t win. It is not just about being nice or avoiding honest conversations about performance and opportunity.

FOCUS ON WHAT COUNTS: We ruthlessly prioritize what really, really matters, allowing us to do better on fewer things. We set clear and stretching goals and recognize maximum performance impact. It is not about reducing ambition or effort or running after the ‘new and shiny’.

STAY THREE STEPS AHEAD: We think boldly and creatively to make breakthroughs in performance. We are always curious and confident, anticipating and staying ahead of consumer needs and external trends to beat the competition. It is not taking our eye off the ‘here and now’.

DELIVER WITH EXCELLENCE: We deliver everything we do with excellence and pace. We take personal ownership and hold each other to account – always finding a way to do what we’ve said we will do. It is not about analyzing the inevitable roadblocks, admiring the problem or tolerating mediocrity.

Unilever is an equal opportunities employer and committed to diversity and inclusivity in the workplace.  We are intentional in employing the best talent that reflects the demographics of our country and which will help build representation of currently under-represented groups. We therefore invite applications from all candidates representing diversity of age, sex, disability, sexual orientation, race, religion or belief. When appointing potential candidates, the South African Employment Equity and Broad Based Black Economic Empowerment Legislation will be considered.  

We are required by law to verify your ability to work lawfully in South Africa. If you are applying as a foreign national, please note that you may be requested to provide supporting documents supporting this. 

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.