Media Lead Southern Africa

Media Lead Southern Africa

Reports to: Head of Media Digital & dCommerce

Scope: Regional

Location: La Lucia; Katherine Street

Terms & Conditions: Full-Time; Permanent

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.

JOB PURPOSE

A successful Media Planning & Activation Manager balances logic and creativity, operations and strategy. The manager should appreciate both strategic/creative tasks and daily operations. This role involves handling multiple stakeholders and managing priorities and schedules.

WHAT WILL YOUR MAIN RESPONSIBILITIES BE

Your Role/Key Responsibilities:

Drive Best in class Holistic Media Planning and execution

• Lead and coordinate and deliver best in class holistic media plans (offline and online) for the BU that fully leverage data and insights to target media effectively, that are accountable for building brand power.

• Responsible for driving Social First Media execution via the Media agency ensuring that we have the right Social Rich Media channels to drive the Many : Many Social First adverting Strategy.

• Work with the Performance marketing / retailer media experts to drive optimisations both on and off the retailer.

Drive efficiencies through rigour and relationships

• Engage directly with external media owners to deliver the very best value for Unilever across all levers – price (annual deals, budget complexities, sponsorship deals), innovation, and best practice.

• Lead the external media agenda and will include relationships throughout the industry both with traditional media players e.g. SABC, e-Media  / Canal+ DSTV digital players e.g.: META, TikTok,  Google, Vuie , SABC+

• Lead the ‘One Unilever’ country activities, including investment across Business Units within that country to negotiate best commercial rates and JBPs with Media Owners/Vendors.

• Management of media agencies with core elements of media trading and contractual delivery, third-party audits, and management of resource and capability review

Drive best practice and thought leadership

• Dock into various cross functional disciplines (CRM/PRM, Technology/Uni-Ops, and CMI (Consumer and Market Insights). Land core cross functional capabilities and best practice locally.

• Drive Media and digital media innovation – pioneering the future of media and data driven marketing through a continuous test, learn and scale approach. Areas will include TV (SABC, DSTV/Canal+, E-Media, Community TV, live streaming, social commerce, podcasts, SABC+ etc).

• Designs regional BU media plan and allocate budgets for holistic plans that covers all media and all platforms including retailer media.

• Manages media activation based on marketing plan/ activity calendar incl. mobilising/coordinating digital hub channel specialists to deploy locally.

• Collaborates with CD / dComm teams to ensure the full end-to-end plan works on and offline with key customers.

• Work with the agencies / external partners to bring to media plan execution to life.

• Maximise efficiencies via value extractions with external partners / agencies for BU /market.

• SnA Media lead will also have double hat of HC BU – and have accountability for all media planning and execution in that market.

WHAT YOU WILL NEED TO SUCCEED

Experiences & Qualifications

• Degree holders in Marketing and/or Digital related disciplines preferred.

• Relevant experience in digital, media, or marketing.

• 10-15 years of experience in FMCG/Media Agency background desired.

• Advanced understanding of the media and brand communication landscape.

• Experience in holistic brand communication management at a large brand, or cross-brand leadership at an agency.

• Experience in managing advertising/media budgets.

• Experience in driving change and embedding innovation within a business.

• Experience in managing complex stakeholders across matrixed organizations.

• Experience in data-driven marketing and performance/e-commerce.

• Exposure to disciplines such as CRM, Mar-Tech, and Ad-Tech platform management.

Additional Desirable Experience

• Interest in media, digital and tech innovations are desirable

• Building Talent & Teams

• Deep Brand and Consumer Understanding

• Media and Digital Capability

Skills

• Strong technical understanding of Media Strategy, Planning and Buying processes (Traditional Media specifically, Digital Media planning and execution experience is an advantage)

• Digital Media and Marketing understanding and Capability

• Media Value Chain Management

• Budget-setting and management (including ‘trade-offs’; ‘sacrifices’ and consequence analysis and ‘alternatives-design’)

• Deep Brand and Consumer understanding

• Data interpretation leading to actionable insights

• People Management (internal and external)

• Stakeholder management and consultation (internal/external and at all levels)

• Collaboration skills that support multi-stakeholder projects.

• A forward-thinking approach to drive innovation into media and data strategies and plans.

• Problem-solving mindset, with the ability to work flexibly and adapt to changing media and market conditions.

• Strong analytical skills to define, interpret, and respond to data insights.

• Excellent communication skills to align stakeholders and embed best practices.

• Agile and resilient to extreme pressure

• Data Interpretation leading to insights

Leadership

• You are an inclusive motivator of people. Your team deliver with real passion, growing and learning from each other whilst delivering quick wins.

• You are still responsible for your own results and as a manager, you also need to motivate others to deliver with passion, creating an inclusive and engaging climate around you. You can balance challenge with support and coaching. You understand the wider business context and you are emotionally intelligent enough to motivate people to deliver what is needed.

• Critical SOL (Standards of Leadership) Behaviors

  • PASSION FOR HIGH PERFORMANCE: We are hungry to win together, prioritise ruthlessly and own the outcome.

  • PERSONAL MASTERY: We bring our best, whatever the challenge.

  • TALENT CATALYST: We inspire people to grow, with support and honesty.

  • CONSUMER & CUSTOMER LOVE: We delight our consumers and serve our customers better than anyone else.

  • PURPOSEFUL IMPACT: We care deeply about delivering positive impact for business, people and planet.

  • AGILITY: We are curious, courageous and adaptable to change.

Unilever embraces diversity and encourages applicates from all walks of life! This means giving full and fair consideration to all applicants and continuing development of all employees regardless of age, disability, gender reassignment, race, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation, marriage and civil partnership, and pregnancy and maternity. 

Unilever es una organización comprometida con la equidad, la inclusión y la diversidad para impulsar los resultados de nuestro negocio y crear un futuro mejor, cada día, para nuestros diversos empleados, consumidores globales, socios y comunidades. Creemos que una fuerza laboral diversa nos permite igualar nuestras ambiciones de crecimiento e impulsar la inclusión en todo el negocio. ¡En Unilever estamos interesados en que cada individuo traiga su 'Whole Self' al trabajo y esto te incluye a ti! Por lo tanto, si necesita algún requisito de soporte o acceso, le recomendamos que nos avise en el momento de su solicitud para que podamos apoyarle a través de su viaje de reclutamiento.