Daunting or exciting?
The sheer success of our marketing team to date is impressive enough – think Lynx, Pot Noodle, Dove, Peperami, Cornetto… the list of big name brands goes on. But when you think that you could be involved in coming up with something to top these already impressive campaigns – it can either be exceptionally daunting, or extremely exciting.
If you’re leaning towards the latter, you’re exactly the kind of person we want to hear from. The fact is, we need to continue to re-write the marketing rulebook if we’re to keep some of the world’s best brands performing fabulously. And it’s not always just about ‘marketing’. Take our recent Dove campaign – the Campaign for Real Beauty. We commissioned extensive research that revealed how most women all over the world don’t see themselves as beautiful – and actually find that pictures of stick-thin models used in most beauty campaigns were damaging to their self-esteem. So we developed a campaign that wasn’t about promoting impossible ideals – or even promoting our product! – but instead focused on changing people’s perception of beauty.
Thrilling challenge
Lots of factors will make this task difficult. Many markets have never been tougher than today. Competitors are becoming bigger and better, the bar is rising steadily higher and consumers grow more and more demanding. And it’s a market in which things change quickly, so we need to be able to adapt. But to us, that’s a thrilling challenge.
What will you do?
Marketing requires an expert knowledge of your brand, the people who use it and how to communicate with them. So as a marketer, you’ll work closely with consumers – perhaps commissioning research into their likes, dislikes and behaviour. You’ll liase closely with agencies in PR, advertising and pack design to help you realise a campaign. And you’ll speak to retailers, Unilever Brand Innovation Centres across the world, and our Supply Chain and Customer Management teams.
Three weeks of some of the best marketing training around through the Unilever Marketing Foundation Course will teach you all about strategy, brand positioning, understanding consumers, operations, customer management, communication and innovation. After that, you’ll enjoy up to four placements. These could be in marketing for a local company or a regional innovation centre, customer management, factory operations, or market research; occasionally, there are even opportunities to work on an international assignment or in an external agency.
At the end of your training you’ll take the role of brand manager, responsible for projects on a big brand, or for managing your own smaller brand. As you progress you’ll take responsibility for bigger brands and either work for a local operation where you’ll focus on activating brands, or internationally developing regional and global brand strategies.
What have recent trainees done?
- Managed consumer promotions to launch the new range of Dove shower creams.
- Helped co-ordinate publicity for the Flora London Marathon.
- Managed a £3 million summer promotional campaign for PG Tips, including developing a beanie chimp toy, pack redesign, writing advertising briefs and developing posters and TV advertising.
- Managed the campaign linking Persil to Comic Relief, from TV advertising to organising events in a gallery in Leeds.
- Managing a nationwide sampling campaign for Lipton Iced Tea, as well as running a campaign through out the country to increase awareness of the product.
Who is it for?
You need to be passionate about your brand, able to inspire the people around you, highly analytical and creative in your thinking, and show a combination of gut instinct and crystal-clear vision. It’s demanding work, and we’re selective of who we take on. Could it be you?
Meet us
We always encourage our people not to take our word for things, but to find out for themselves. So, here's your chance to discover more about what it's actually like working for us, what's most challenging about the programme, and what makes our people tick.
To find out more about our people click on their names to be shown a detailed profile.
Could this be you?
- Would you enjoy working with a wide range of people, across a variety of functions?
- Do you enjoy being part of a team and leading one (with all the responsibility that entails)?
- Do you enjoy managing complicated projects, with demanding deadlines and budgets – as well as creative challenges?
- Are you passionate about the brands you buy?
- Are you fascinated by people, what they do and why?
If your answer is yes to the above, please click on the link to apply!
