Brand Strategy and Insights Manager

Virgin hired a Brand Strategy and Insights Manager.

The candidate is Oxford Alumni & 9 years of relevant experience.

This company was supported by Gaby, Client Success Manager.

An in-depth description of the role

About Virgin

For almost fifty years Virgin has been championing consumers by disrupting business around the world. Spanning numerous sectors, our companies are united by a desire to challenge convention, delivering feel-good experiences that you will want to be part of.

We are also united by our ambition, to play a meaningful role in people’s lives. As Richard says “If you aren’t making a difference in other people’s lives, you shouldn’t be in business”. We strive for this ambition by being purpose driven, with each of our companies changing business for good in their own way.

While it’s hard to “bottle” what makes the brand uniquely Virgin, we can be sure of the values which we all hold dear, and help us to continue our growth in a distinctly Virgin way. They are:

• Insatiable curiosity
• Heartfelt service
• Red hot
• Delightfully surprising
• Smart disruption
• Straight-up

The Virgin Group focuses on the following core consumer sectors of: Financial Services; Health and Wellness; Telecomms and Media; Travel and Leisure.

We are a family of businesses with a shared brand. The companies are run independently and often have different shareholders and boards. As Virgin grows around the globe, the Group needs to ensure that the new businesses created, operate from the start with a strong emphasis on Brand, People and responsible business practices.

Virgin Management

Virgin Management is the home of Virgin. It supports the Branson family and the growth of the Virgin brand by developing and nurturing valuable Virgin businesses around the world. The team has offices in London and New York and covers many facets of the business including investment, legal, finance, tax, human resources, marketing and corporate relations. It works alongside Virgin Unite, the charitable foundation of the Virgin Group and alongside Virgin Enterprises which licences the ‘Virgin’ brand. We are also home to Virgin Start Up, our not for profit company which offers support to start, fund and scale start-up businesses.

Brand Strategy and Insights Manager

A strong, central brand strategy capability helps us to understand and manage our brand better, enabling us to spot both risks and opportunities and act on them.  It helps to drive depth of relationships, retention and royalties via stronger Virgin Companies and gives us a greater likelihood to convert business development opportunities.  It also helps us to manage the overall brand better by ensuring propositions etc are brand accretive. Crucial to the creation and delivery of brand strategy is consumer insight.  

The Brand Strategy and Insights Manager contribute to shaping the branded business strategy across the Virgin Group of businesses. 

This role supports the branded business strategy in a number of key areas:

• Turning the data and information that we receive from a wide range of sources (to include our own research programmes, Vco data, market information) into actionable insights
• Using insight to audit the health of the Virgin brand across multiple dimensions, identifying and communicating opportunities and risks for the Virgin brand
• Designing and lead our brand research programme, collaborating closely across the business to ensure that multiple stakeholder needs are addressed
• Develop Brand strategies to leverage/mitigate opportunities and risks
• Identify market opportunities for new propositions/ incubated businesses
• Providing insight based input on ad hoc strategic projects relating to particular Vcos or issues

Key responsibilities will include:

• Be the lead on certain VCO brand strategy projects which may relate to brand hierarchy/architecture, brand extensions, proposition development, marketing strategy or complex research needs.
• Join the dots between multiple data points to draw out insight that truly helps to drive our brand forward.
• Create appropriate research plans to give us a rounded view of brand health, to include multiple methodologies.
• Manage all group brand health monitoring and ad hoc consumer research and co-ordinate the global trackers with regional brand teams.
• Suggest recommended actions and strategic imperatives based on research findings.
• Support the Head of Brand Strategy and Insight and other Brand Directors in the development of brand strategies to include regional brand strategies and business development strategies.  To include market, sector and brand analysis plus recommended actions.
• Lead particular brand strategy projects relating to business development, to include assessment of particular opportunities, development of pitch materials and any brand evidence needed, design of research methodologies, proposition development and go to market plan as required.
• Work cross-functionally wherever appropriate to maximise the success of the business
• Ensure that the (internal/external) customer experience is considered at all times

What we’re looking for

We’re looking for an ex-consultant who has both strong analytics and a broad understanding of brand strategy.

• Previous experience of working for high-profile consumer brands is essential
• Strong understanding of the Virgin brand
• Highly strategic, able to think laterally and creatively
• Numerate and confident with statistics, with experience in both qualitative and quantitative research 
• Able to apply intellectual abilities but also roll sleeves up to get things done
• Great team player with the ability to create excellent working relationships across the group
• Highly organised, anticipating needs and over-delivering wherever possible
• Able to think on one’s feet and use initiative to solve problems and deliver solutions
• Able to change direction and work on multiple projects across a wide range of topics/businesses
• Fun, hard-working, innovative, original and personable
• Excellent communication skills: copywriting, editing, presentations

(Some of!) the benefits of working at Virgin Management

• Unlimited holiday, flexible working and family-friendly policies
• 2x free flights per year on Virgin Atlantic network (tenure-based benefit)
• Private healthcare, dental healthcare, life assurance, critical illness cover, income protection and pension matched up to 5%
• Season ticket loans, childcare vouchers, cycle 2 work, payroll giving
• Free lunch, fruit and Friday pastries
• Comprehensive learning and development programme 
• No dress code!

Diversity and Inclusion

We aim to make Virgin a place for everyone, regardless of age, gender, race, sexual orientation, disability, religion, and belief or non-belief. A place where people can be their true selves and deliver their best work and have a lot of fun while doing it.

We regularly review our practices and processes to make sure we stay true to our word, live up to our family behaviours, and support our purpose to change business for good.

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