Brand Portfolio Manager (Young Learners)

Brand Portfolio Manager (Young Learners) 

The Brand Portfolio Manager, Young Learners is responsible for developing and executing brand strategy for Macmillan Education ELT for a Pre-Primary & Primary American English product portfolio, and ensuring that products in this portfolio meet customer requirements, can compete effectively in the marketplace, and that they have a robust go to market strategy and campaigns execution at each of the stages of product lifecycle to drive and maximize sales. 

Reporting to the Global Marketing Director, the Brand Portfolio Manager (Young Learners) will be based in Mexico. This is a highly collaborative role, working closely with Research and Data teams, the American English Publishing team, regional Marketing and other functions to continuously analyze the marketplace and understand quickly evolving customer requirements in order to design and deliver strong customer value propositions, as well as maximize return on investment through efficient lifecycle management of products in the Pre-primary & Primary American English portfolio.

Responsibilities

Portfolio Strategy and Brand Management

• Working effectively with the American English Publisher and team, Regional Marketers, Research and Data teams, contribute with brand perspective to the publishing strategy, creating recommendations for timely placement of brands, competitive product positioning and differentiation.
• Manage the life cycle of products within the portfolio from launch through relaunch and retention to sunsetting.
• Working with the American English Publisher, design the research program to ensure profitability and sustainability of the portfolio, including competitor intelligence, market trends and validation of products in development.
• Working with the Research team, lead on the concept validation research to ensure that the forthcoming products and solutions are competitive and meet the customer requirements.
• Contribute to the Investment Approval documentation preparation by providing sales forecasts and their rationale, verified with the local sales and marketing teams, pricing recommendations, preliminary go to market strategy and proposed Customer Value Proposition.
• Working with the Research and Data teams, carry out post-publication research and analysis to understand performance of our brands. Working with the AE Publishing team, define appropriate actions necessary to meet the business goals for the product in its  future iterations or replacements.

Brand development

• Lead on the development of product branding in line with the wider publishing strategy, including:
  • Creation of winning Customer Value Propositions (i.e. product positioning, Key Selling Points and differentiation)
  • Creation of product titles and names and securing trademarking (when relevant)
  • Producing visual brand representations i.e. covers, logos etc.

Go To Market Strategy and Brand Communication

• Build an effective Go To Market strategy and drive its execution across the Regional Markets to achieve targeted sales.
• Lead on defining the optimum product configurations and bundling/packaging and align with the agreed pricing strategy to maximize returns on investment and achieve competitive advantage.
• Work closely with the Global Campaigns Manager, the Teacher Training Manager and other key internal stakeholders (e.g. Publishing and Sales) to deliver effective global brand campaigns meeting time, cost and quality criteria.
• Ensure the consistent application of the brands across print and digital channels (including web presence, email marketing, and social media) by working closely with the Head of Marketing Operations & Lead Generation and the Digital Marketing Manager.
• Create branding documents for internal communication and customer-facing marketing copy for products within the portfolio.
• Support regional Marketing and Sales teams by providing sales enablement tools and product training.

Key Relationships

• Reporting to Global Marketing Director
• Working closely with key stakeholders e.g. Research and Data Teams, Publishing and Digital Product, Global Marketing Operations, Regional Marketing and Sales, Customer Support, Production/ Inventory

Experience, skills and qualifications

Essential

• Demonstrable experience in brand management and global brand initiatives
• A track record of innovative thinking and creative problem-solving in developing and executing effective and differentiated brand strategies 
• Proven ability to analyze complex data sets, extract actionable insights, and refine brand strategies based on data-driven decisions
• Solid experience of working in global teams and understanding regional variations and the impact on customer requirements 
• A proactive approach to staying ahead of emerging industry trends and technologies, adjusting brand strategies accordingly to maintain relevance and capitalize on new opportunities
• Strong influencing and communication skills with the credibility and gravitas to drive decision-making
• Solid experience in briefing effective and impactful marketing assets for a wide variety of channels, including print and digital
• Strong organization and planning skills with the ability to work under pressure

Desirable

• Experience in successfully managing educational product portfolios within a global context, and an ability to tailor branding strategies to the unique needs of local audiences
• Relevant marketing or professional qualification
• Ability to use a wide range of tools to deliver effective brand campaigns and assess data

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