Associate Brand Manager, Taste Innovation

What You’ll Be Serving Up:

The Associate Brand Manager of Taste Innovation will assist the Director of Taste Innovation in developing pipelines of audience and insight-based ideas to support a 18-month calendar.  This role will personally lead project management of ideas from start to finish of the process which includes participating in ideation activities to come up with audience and insight-based ideas, screening and prioritizing ideas, collaborating cross-functionally to develop and refine ideas and successfully validate and launch ideas to the national calendar.  

Here’s How You’ll Spice Things Up:

Development of Taste Innovation Projects (30%)-

• Refine ideas into tangible concepts: Lead smaller cross-functional team of fit and finance to refine loose ideas into tangible concepts that are on-strategy, insight based and aligned with brand and business goals.
• Screen concept to narrow build: Lead screening of concept iterations with target audiences to finalize build. 
• Establish project: Establish concept in stage-gate process as official project validated through early innovation process.
• Project Management: Create project team and work cross-functionally to confirm high-level operational and financial feasibility of concept.  Lead cross-functional team through ops testing.

Validation (30%) –

• Project Management: Manage project team through development and execution of test.
• Marketing Materials: Brief the IMC team on all marketing needs for test.  Work with team to ensure materials are delivered on time and accurately communicate the taste innovation.
• Alignment: Develop materials to gain internal and external alignment for test.

National Launch (30%) –

• Project Management: Manage project team through development and execution of national campaign.
• Marketing Materials: Brief the IMC team on all marketing needs for National.  Work with team to ensure materials are delivered on time and accurately communicate the taste innovation.
• Alignment: Develop materials to gain internal and external alignment for national campaign.

Assist in Share-out of Taste Innovation Projects  (10%) –

Assist in preparation and presentation of innovation progress at key events and meetings such as NPC and NCAC Quarterly Meetings

What You Bring to the Table:

Education/Certifications – Undergraduate degree in Marketing, Marketing Research, or Social Sciences with career aspirations to the consumer side of marketing. Experience in the restaurant category, foodservice, or CPG preferred. MBA preferred.

Experience: 

• Years of Experience – 4 years of experience post Undergraduate Degree. Prefer 3-4 years of experience post MBA.
• Project leader with a consistent background of delivering results by creating competitive and breakthrough strategies and plans
• Startup Mentality with proven track record of driving growth in an entrepreneurial environment
• Product Management leading multi-functional teams using stage-gate process
• Strong Communicator who works well with cross-functional teams and leads multiple stakeholders – even when they don’t report to you.
• Deep Analytical Skills for influencing others and the ability to utilize data to make good decisions when confronted by ambiguity
• Deep understanding of how to build empathy with customers; experience working with customers in field and extracting insights from customer co-development exercises

KFC Corporation, based in Louisville, Kentucky, is one of the few brands in America that can boast about having a rich, 60-year history of success and innovation. In fact, KFC is the world's most popular chicken restaurant chain and a division of Yum! Brands, the world’s largest restaurant company.
 
Yum! Brands, Inc., based in Louisville, Kentucky, has over 45,000 restaurants in more than 135 countries and territories and is one of the Aon Hewitt Top Companies for Leaders in North America. In 2018, Yum! Brands was recognized as part of the inaugural Bloomberg Gender-Equality Index. The company’s restaurant brands – KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell – are global leaders of the chicken, pizza and Mexican-style food categories. 
 
More important than our size is our commitment to breakthrough innovation and the success of our employees. We're proud of the unique culture we've built, one where everyone can be their best self, make a difference and have fun! We believe in our people, trust in their positive intentions, encourage ideas from everyone, and have actively developed a workforce that is diverse in style and background.