Consumer Market Insights Manager

RCL FOODS is a deeply rooted South African food manufacturer that produces some of the country’s most-loved brands, including Yum Yum peanut butter, Nola mayonnaise, Ouma rusks, and Selati sugar, just to name a few. At the heart of our culture and strategy is our Purpose – WE GROW WHAT MATTERS – which reflects our belief in collectively doing that little more to create a positive impact that truly matters.

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The Consumer Marketing Insights (CMI) team is a strategic business partner within RCL FOODS , supporting multiple categories, business units (BUs), teams and brands. As a team we deliver consumer, shopper and marketplace understanding that connects the business to the consumer, creates consumer intimacy and enables stronger brands, data-driven decision making and future growth.

RCL FOODS is seeking a Consumer Market Insights Manager to champion the voice of the consumer and embed best-practice research and insight methodologies across the business. The successful candidate will translate consumer, shopper and market data into compelling, actionable insights that create a competitive advantage. These insights will help shape and strengthen brands, inform strategy, unlock innovation opportunities, enhance marketing effectiveness and ensure consumer and shopper understanding remains at the centre of business decision-making.

Duties & Responsibilities

Consumer & Shopper Insights

• Champion the voice of the consumer and shopper, embedding consumer-centric thinking across the business and building deep understanding of existing, adjacent and future growth categories
• Lead, conduct and analyse research for your teams: sensory, copy testing, brand health, shopper behaviour, white space opportunities, pricing studies, immersions, segmentation/U&A, need states, CEP / occasion opportunities, DBA studies, competitor intelligence
• Play an integral role throughout the innovation process, from opportunity identification and sizing, ideation and concept generation through to concept, agile CPT, go/no-go recommendations, launch optimisation and post launch analysis
• Support business case development by identifying market opportunities, estimating market potential and providing consumer-based inputs into volumetric, CAPEX and investment decisions
• Challenge and influence brand teams to ensure strategies, brand positioning, communications and innovation pipelines are grounded in robust consumer and shopper understanding
• Maintain a strong understanding of the competitive landscape and broader market environment, providing actionable analysis and recommendations that identify opportunities and risks.
• Be on top of consumer, shopper and category trends and needs and proactively share relevant insights across the organisation

Marlet Research Abilities

• Support the CMI Executive in embedding best-practice consumer insight frameworks consistently across brand teams (e.g. BHT, CPS, Quality Benchmark Testing, Creative Testing and DBA studies)
• Understand business challenges and recommend the most appropriate research methodologies to answer key business questions and validate hypotheses
• Proactively identify research opportunities and recommend insight-led solutions to support business growth
• Lead and manage all stages of qualitative and quantitative research projects, working collaboratively with agency partners and conducting self-service research where appropriate
• Utilise multiple data sources to build a holistic understanding of consumer and shopper behaviour, translating findings into clear, actionable recommendations that influence business decisions
• Summarise & translate research findings into clear, actionable recommendations that influence business decisions
• Manage community panels and self-service research platforms to support agile learning and ongoing consumer, shopper and category understanding and adhoc requests
• Develop and interpret segmentation studies, with a strong understanding of both the science and application of segmentation

Retail Measurement & Analytics

• Share & analyse specific monthly RMS reports (share, pricing, market, inflation)
• Deliver consumer switching, penetration and consumption analyses from sources like Nielsen IQ Homepanel / Kantar World Panel to your brand categories
• Able to understand the different types of analytic tools to enhance data and answer business needs
• Support team in pricing and promotional modelling and effectiveness in order to develop a pricing strategy
• Work with MMA tools for promotion / activation evaluation to understand effectiveness of spend and how we can have a better ROI
• Quantify market opportunities through market sizing, forecasting and volumetric modelling

Agency and Stakeholder Engagement

• Champion CMI and promote best-practice research standards and ways of working across the business
• Serve as the primary point of contact for research agency partners. And act as a trusted advisor and subject matter expert on consumer and shopper understanding across the business
• Build strong partnerships with agency partners to ensure high-quality outputs, service excellence and maximum business impact
• Challenge agency methodologies, interpretations and recommendations to ensure insights are commercially relevant, actionable and aligned to business objectives
• Actively participate throughout the research process, including questionnaire design, sample/profile development, project sign-off and presentation of findings
• Ensure all projects are delivered to agreed quality, timing and budget

Minimum Requirements

• Minimum 8 years' experience in market research
• Degree in Marketing, Management Sciences, Psychology or a related field.
• FMCG experience is essential, with Food & Beverage experience advantageous
• Strong experience across qualitative and quantitative research methodologies.
• Research agency experience is advantageous.

Knowledge and Skills

• Strong capabilities in a variety of both quantitative and qualitative methodologies.
• Hands on experience & knowledge in managing & analysing a wide range of market research methodologies & tools.
• Excellent project management skills, with the ability to lead projects end-to-end from briefing and methodology design through to analysis, reporting and insights recommendation.
• Ability to manage multiple projects simultaneously while maintaining high standards of quality and delivery.
• Ability to synthesise multiple data sources into clear business implications, opportunities and recommendations.
• Proficiency with RMS Data eg. Circana / NIQ, ASK D, as well as other analytical modelling tools and techniques (eg. Market Mix Modelling Assortment Optimisation, PSM).
• Superior communication, report writing and presentation skills.
• Understanding of statistics, analytics and modelling will be advantageous.
• High computer literacy in using Excel, AI and Powerpoint.