Senior Brand Manager

As a Senior Brand Manager, you will manage and help drive the overall growth of our formal channel aggregation division through tailored product and channel marketing initiatives.

What you'll do

What The Herd Is About

Flash is a well-established brand and part of Pepkor, with a global strategy and a clear purpose: making people’s lives easier.

We use frontier technology to create opportunities and build products and services that make a real difference in people’s everyday lives.

Our three values are the heartbeat of our business:

• We are all in
• We have each other’s backs
• We are brave

They shape how we work, how we show up for one another and the kind of culture we’re building. A place where people can do meaningful work, feel supported to do their best and have the freedom to make an impact.

If you’re excited by meaningful problems, smart people and building brands and products that improve everyday lives, we’d love to meet you.

Why this role matters

As a Senior Brand Manager, you will manage and help drive the overall growth of our formal channel aggregation division through tailored product and channel marketing initiatives.

What You’ll Own

Brand strategy and planning

• Drive product/service growth strategies through marketing within owned and partner channels
• Develop and execute annual marketing strategies and plans based on business strategy.
• Develop relevant B2B and B2C brand strategies when necessary, including brand and category positioning
• Develop strategic approaches and campaigns for products/brands across relevant B2B and B2C channels
• Work strategically with both internal stakeholders and external partners to develop and execute marketing strategies

Product & channel growth & ownership

• Act as custodian and owner of specific products/services and/or channels, and key contact point for other business stakeholders
• Drive the growth of specific channels for existing products/services

Campaign design, management and execution

• Act as custodian or co-custodian of particular product/channel growth
• Develop & launch marketing campaigns, in line with the product & brand strategies
• Work with external partners and internal stakeholders to co-create marketing content across all touchpoints
• Write strategic, structured creative briefs with clear objectives and KPIs, and guide the start of the creative process.
• Use AI to accelerate briefing, research, first-draft content and reporting, and remain accountable for the accuracy, originality and brand-fit of the final output
• Evaluate creative work, including AI-assisted work, against owned brand strategies and/or external partner brand requirements and briefs, checking for originality, accuracy and brand safety.
• Determine unique selling propositions with effective brand messaging to differentiate from competitors and incorporate into campaigns. Balance AI-assisted solutions with human judgement on brand distinctiveness.
• Work with internal stakeholders (Sales & KAM teams, Marketing Operations; Creative team; Digital & Performance; Field Teams) and relevant external stakeholders (Media, Production) and channel managers to execute product/brand campaigns across relevant channels
• Monitor, analyse and proactively report on key marketing metrics, quality, and campaign performance.
• Plan and run structured tests (e.g. message, creative and channel) and apply the learnings to future campaigns or marketing initiatives.
• Drive and negotiate partner marketing opportunities for across products and channels.
• Accountable for budget management and the delivery of KPIs and agreed targets.

Market Research and Analysis

• Analyse sales and market data to understand impact of campaigns on brand sales and help identify untapped opportunities for new product launches.
• Gain/obtain customer and product usage insights, identify new opportunities and build customer personas through research, surveys, interviews and social listening.
• Field visits/surveys to understand routes to market and customer behaviour across channels better
• Uncover and share market and competitor intel and research to be proactive and market-responsive
• Use AI-assisted desk research and analysis to widen the evidence base, and validate AI-generated insight against real consumer and market evidence before acting on it

Stakeholder Management & engagement

• Work with internal stakeholders (marketing lead & team, product managers, channel managers, Sales & KAM teams, digital team and creative studio) and external stakeholders (PR & Media, product /channel partners) to create and implement all aspects of the annual marketing plans and specific campaigns across the group.
• Ongoing communication and presentations on campaigns and tactics to both internal and external stakeholders.
• Regular updates and reports to division GMs and marketing leads
• Lead external partner meetings as the main marketing representative

Team Management

• Potentially oversee and manage junior and mid-weight brand or marketing account managers (team-dependent)
• Responsible for team learning, development and growth, which includes mentoring team members during live briefs and campaigns
• Responsible for setting achievable targets and ensuring that team members deliver on KPIs
• Delegate tasks according to team capabilities and business requirements
• Manage team members operationally
• Identify and propose solutions for key team challenges – individually & as a collective
• Coach junior and mid-weight brand managers to use AI well: build core craft first, review AI-assisted work, and set clear standards for when human review is required
• Gather regular team feedback on leadership and management to constantly improve
• Set the standard for the culture in the team in line with business culture and code of conduct

What you'll bring

Experience We’re Looking For

• Relevant bachelor or post-graduate degree/diploma with good results or proven experience in a marketing role
• Minimum of 7+ years marketing management/relevant advertising experience
• B2B and B2C marketing experience
• Channel marketing experience
• Portfolio of work on one or more products/brands
• Experience working with - briefing and guiding - creative teams & creative campaign development
• Thorough understanding of brand and business positioning & strategy
• Thorough understanding of channel marketing strategy for branded products/services
• Thorough understanding of foundations/pillars of effective cross-channel and partner marketing
• Experience working closely with clients/partners to drive their products/services across channels
• In-depth insight into South African consumers and consumer behaviour
• PR; Channel marketing; Content marketing, Digital marketing, BTL marketing & activations
• Management of project or marketing budgets
• Practical use of generative AI in briefing, research, content development and reporting, with the judgement to check, edit and take accountability for the output
• Campaign analysis and reporting using sales, channel and platform data
• Working awareness of data privacy (POPIA) and of IP and brand-safety risks when using AI tools and marketing data
• Comfort working with limited first-party consumer data – our consumer products are largely anonymous by design, so insight and measurement draw on sales and transaction data, channel and partner data, research and platform analytics

Bonus points if you have…

• Experience working in a fintech company
• Cross-industry experience
• Experience in varied businesses/business environments
• Experience in any/all of these areas: PR; Channel marketing; Content marketing, Digital marketing, BTL marketing & activations
• Experience with digital and web analytics (e.g. Google Analytics, social and advertising platform analytics)
• Experience embedding AI tools in briefing, content and reporting workflows
• Budgeting & budget forecasts
• Experience with project management software like Asana
• Digital performance tracking tools
• Data analysis
• Experience designing and reading simple marketing tests (e.g. message, creative or channel comparisons)
• Knowledge of CRM, lifecycle marketing and attribution principles, and where they can and cannot apply to anonymous, cash-based products
• Consumer research involvement & exposure

You’ll thrive in the Herd if you have…

• Open and fuelled by curiosity - Stays deeply curious about people, behaviour, culture and new ideas, especially the people we serve, asking why and how, seeking out different perspectives and using every source of knowledge, including AI, while still challenging assumptions.
• Creative strategic thinker - Solves problems both logically and creatively, turning insight into distinctive ideas that feel true to the people we serve, and using AI to stretch the possibilities without losing originality or strategic intent.
• Analytical thinker - Connects the dots to spot patterns, challenges and opportunities, tests the evidence behind what data and AI outputs say, separates real insight from face-value numbers, and turns what is left into clear decisions that can be explained and learned from.
• Confident communicator – Explains ideas, thinking and results clearly and persuasively to internal and external stakeholders, and is open about where and how AI shaped the work.
• Ownership & delivery - Takes initiative and responsibility from brief to delivery, prioritises well, solves problems as they appear, and owns the final output and its consequences however it was produced.
• Applied AI fluency - Starts with the human or business question, then chooses and uses the right AI approach well, and keeps learning as the technology changes.
• Critical judgement - Questions AI output for accuracy, bias, tone and fit with real people and the brand before it is used, and owns the decision about what goes out under the Flash name.
• AI-Enabled ways of working - Starts with the human or business question, then chooses and uses the right AI approach well, and keeps learning as the technology changes.

Perks that make your life easier

• Catered lunch four days a week for office-based team members.
• An open coffee bar and snacks.
• Employee Assistance Programme.
• Corporate Social Investment events and opportunities to give back.
• Free on-site parking.
• Access to LinkedIn Learning.
• Social events throughout the year.
• Group risk benefits.
• Flash Club, our employee engagement programme where you can earn up to five additional leave days by completing all categories within a cycle.

Ready to join the Herd?

If this sounds like the kind of challenge you’ve been looking for, we’d love to hear from you.

Apply now and give it HORNS!