Associate Manager, Brand & Product

CBU | Naperville | Full Time | Permanent

Wilton is a US heritage brand with a 95-year history in baking and decorating. Now fully integrated into the Dr. Oetker family, Wilton aspires to be the most influential and successful cake decorating brand. Learn more about Wilton at www.wilton.com.
 

Job Summary

Do you have a passion for all aspects of building brands with a consumer-centric growth mindset? Wilton Brands has an immediate opening for an Associate Brand & Product Manager. Reporting to the Senior Brand & Product Manager, this critical role is accountable for supporting annual and long-range business planning, brand strategy, business performance reporting, innovation, renovation, and marketing support communication. Lead and represent your product line/category in cross-functional groups to help advance both short- and long-term initiatives that deliver growth, profitability, and drive alignment while embracing Wilton values and vision. We welcome candidates who have broad knowledge of various Consumer Product Goods categories.

Essential Responsibilities

Ownership: 

• Manage and oversee all operations for product commercialization and product life cycle management across multiple product lines. This includes working with our Tech Product Development team to brief and communicate business requirements as an input to the product development process and drive innovation, working with our Sourcing partners to give insight-backed direction on target products through resourcing initiatives and support approval of formula/product development.
• Monitor product line performance, trends, insights, and feedback to identify opportunities to promote and grow the business and/or needs to consolidate and rationalize the product line.
• Oversee development and approval of packaging artwork as needed, including coordination with design agency and sourcing.
• Maintain comprehensive product, category, competitive and industry information and assist in communication of this information within the company.
• Manage insight driven innovation and renovation to improve the product range by collaborating across all contributing departments ensuring alignment with the brand strategy.

Assist:

• Development and execution of annual and long-range brand and product business plans with a total P&L approach encompassing both commercial and operational opportunities in order to manage objectives, growth and profitability for categories and products.
• Manage product portfolio budget and reporting.
• Assist/lead in defining the product price, promotion, and margin guidelines.
• Sourcing & resourcing project management as it pertains to product line responsibilities.
• Engage with Sales partners to review strategic account plans as input to the annual planning process.
• Analyzing customer specific SKU assortment recommendations.
• Contribute to developing out stage gate and business cases for specific products and programming.
• Work with Insights & Analytics (I&A) to obtain consumer analytics to support and inspire short- and long-term business objectives.

Visibility: 

• Ongoing marketing campaigns through all seasons.
• Access to Wilton leaders across categories and departments.
• Help coordinate with Brand & Community team and agency partners to plan and execute marketing communication and activation opportunities.
• Liaise with Sales, Brand & Community team, and agency partners to develop shopper marketing programs for key accounts.  

Education and Experience

• Bachelor’s degree from a four-year college or university with an emphasis in Marketing, Business or related field. 
• 1-5 years prior marketing experience in brand management, Consumer Packaged Goods, retailer experience, and/or product management. 

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities

• Team player with good interpersonal skills to lead/coach cross-functional teams.
• Experience being hands-on with a can-do attitude and approach toward navigating opportunities and challenges in a transformative company environment.
• Experience exercising both general management and marketing fundamentals to meet brand and product business objectives.
• Self-starter with effective project management and multi-tasking skills, with ability to prioritize and meet deadlines with acute attention to detail in a cross functional team environment.
• Possess excellent verbal, written, and presentation skills.
• Experience managing brands and products utilizing brand foundation/brand key and brand architecture/design system to build strategies that deliver business results.
• Strong analytical skills essential for market and competitive evaluation, pricing, and product category management.
• Proficient in Excel, PowerPoint, and Word: ERP experience is preferred.
• Knowledge of IRI or Nielsen for syndicated and panel data.
• Experience planning and managing brand budgets.
• Experience planning, executing, and measuring marketing campaigns.
• Other duties as assigned. 

Physical Demands

• Professional office environment, sedentary in nature
• Routinely use standard office equipment such as (laptop computers, monitors/keyboards, printers, and telephones)
• Processes information and communicates effectively with others
• Travel domestically as needed – light travel possible to participate in key customer meetings