Assistant Brand Manager

At KFC, we pride ourselves on being original. We even named our recipe after it. But for us, the answer to the question is simple. Be You. Everyone at KFC is different. Unique. It’s what makes us special - Our people, The Originals. And we welcome you to join us. Bring your individuality to the table. Bring your grit and energy. Bring your spirit. Your story. Your drive and your passion. Bring it. Every piece of you. Even the parts you don’t like. Because we value our people no matter what. We’ll feed your potential and we’ll support you; to be your best self, to make a difference, and have fun. Together, we can be part of something truly extraordinary. All you have to do, is Bring it.

This role requires you to support KFC South Africa’s brand and commercial growth by translating brand strategy into strong customer-led campaigns, product and value initiatives, and market activations. The role supports the Brand and Senior Brand Managers in turning consumer and cultural insight into high-quality execution, while coordinating agencies and cross-functional teams to deliver activity that builds brand equity, drives customer behavior and supports commercial performance.

Responsibilities:

Brand Strategy and Planning Support
• Support the Brand and Senior Brand Managers in translating KFC South Africa’s brand strategy into clear
campaign, product, value and customer plans.
• Apply KFC’s brand positioning, audience understanding and distinctive brand codes consistently across
assigned work.
• Support annual and window planning by gathering consumer insights, competitor activity, cultural trends and
business performance learnings.
• Support the development of clear, insight-led briefs for agencies and internal teams.
• Contribute ideas and recommendations that strengthen customer relevance, brand equity and commercial
performance.
• Build understanding of the role different products, occasions and customer segments play within the broader
KFC portfolio.

Integrated Campaign and Content Execution
• Support the end-to-end delivery of assigned integrated campaigns and marketing initiatives, from briefing
through development, production, launch and post-campaign review.
• Coordinate campaign timelines, creative development, approvals, production and asset delivery to ensure
work is on-brief, on-brand and on-time.
• Support execution across relevant customer touchpoints including restaurant, digital, social, media, CRM,
delivery and local market activation.
• Work closely with creative, media, digital, PR, social and other agency partners to ensure consistent
campaign execution.
• Review campaign assets for accuracy, brand consistency, customer relevance and channel suitability before
approval by the appropriate Brand or Senior Brand Manager.
•Help ensure restaurant and operational teams receive clear, accurate and practical campaign information and toolkits.

Product, Value & Innovation Support
•Support the development and launch of menu innovation, limited-time offers, value platforms and promotional activity.
•Coordinate inputs required across Marketing, Operations, Finance, Supply Chain, Food Innovation, Digital and other functions to support launch readiness.
•Support product and proposition development through customer insight, competitor understanding and commercial analysis.
•Assist with product tests, customer feedback and test-and-learn activity.
•Track implementation and performance of assigned launches and identify opportunities for improvement.
•Build understanding of how pricing, product mix, value perception and promotional mechanics influence customer behavior and commercial performance.

Consumer, Cultural and Performance Insight
•Gather and synthesize consumer, category, competitor, social and cultural information to support marketing decisions.
•Stay close to South African food, youth, entertainment, digital and cultural trends that may create opportunities or risks for KFC.
•Support consumer research projects, research briefs and interpretation of findings.
•Monitor competitor campaigns, pricing, promotions, innovation and customer propositions.
•Turn available data, research and customer feedback into clear observations and practical recommendations.
•Bring a strong customer perspective into campaign and product discussions.

Performance & Commercial Understanding
•Track performance of assigned campaigns and initiatives against agreed brand and commercial KPIs.
•Support post-campaign reviews and identify key learnings and recommended actions.
•Build fluency in key marketing and commercial measures including sales, transactions, ticket, product mix, margin, brand health, reach, engagement, conversion and ROI.
•Use dashboards and available business data to identify performance trends, opportunities and areas requiring attention.
•Support budget tracking, purchase orders and campaign financial administration.
•Develop understanding of how marketing activity contributes to both short-term commercial performance and long-term brand health.

Agency & Cross-Functional Coordination
•Manage day-to-day workflow with assigned agency partners under the direction of the Brand or Senior Brand Manager.
•Coordinate inputs and deliverables across Marketing, Operations, Finance, Supply Chain, Legal, Digital, Technology, Insights and other relevant teams.
•Maintain clear campaign timelines, action trackers, decisions and next steps.
•Proactively identify execution risks, dependencies or delays and escalate them early.
•Build strong working relationships across internal teams and agency partners.
•Contribute to a collaborative, high-performance Marketing team culture through ownership, curiosity, reliability and a bias for action.

Education:
•Bachelor’s Degree in Marketing, Business Management, Communications or a related field.
•Postgraduate qualification advantageous but not required.

Experience:
•Approximately 2 to 3 years' relevant marketing or brand experience, ideally within FMCG, QSR, retail, consumer goods or another fast-paced consumer environment.
•Exposure to the development and execution of integrated marketing campaigns.
•Experience supporting a campaign, product launch, promotion or innovation from brief through to execution.
•Exposure to digital and social marketing and content development.
•Comfortable working with basic commercial data, dashboards, presentations, budgets and trackers.
•Experience working with agencies and multiple internal stakeholders advantageous.
•Exposure to consumer research and insight development advantageous.

Capabilities & Skills:
•Customer orientation: Understands customer needs and can bring the customer perspective into marketing decisions.
•Brand understanding: Good understanding of brand positioning, distinctive assets and consistent brand execution.
•Creative judgement: Able to assess whether work responds to the brief, feels relevant to the customer and is appropriate for the channel.
•Commercial curiosity: Developing understanding of how marketing decisions affect sales, transactions, margin, product mix and brand performance.
•Analytical thinking: Comfortable interpreting data, research and customer feedback and turning these into practical observations.
•Digital & social fluency: Good understanding of major digital and social platforms and how customers engage with brands across them.
•Project management: Strong organizational skills with the ability to coordinate multiple timelines, stakeholders and deliverables.
•Agency coordination: Able to work effectively with creative, media and specialist agency partners.
•Communication: Clear written, verbal and presentation skills.
•Cultural curiosity: Strong interest in South African consumers, culture, food, entertainment and emerging trends.
•Learning agility: Curious, receptive to feedback and able to learn quickly from both successes and failures.
•Execution discipline: Strong attention to detail, follow-through and personal accountability.
•Collaboration: Builds constructive relationships and works effectively across functions.
•Bias for action: Takes initiative, solves problems and keeps work moving.