Country Marketing Manager | Retail | IKEA Egypt

Job Requisition ID: 169081 

Established in the 1930s as a trading business, Al-Futtaim Group today is one of the most diversified and progressive, privately held regional businesses headquartered in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Structured into five operating divisions; automotive, financial services, real estate, retail and healthcare; employing more than 35,000 employees across more than 20 countries in the Middle East, Asia and Africa, Al-Futtaim Group partners with over 200 of the world's most admired and innovative brands. Al-Futtaim Group’s entrepreneurship and relentless customer focus enables the organization to continue to grow and expand; responding to the changing needs of our customers within the societies in which we operate. 

By upholding our values of respect, excellence, collaboration and integrity; Al-Futtaim Group continues to enrich the lives and aspirations of our customers each and every day

Overview of the role

The Job holder will lay and execute the foundation for maximized sales volumes and optimized long term profit by focusing on generating large volumes of visitors to the IKEA Store by converting visitors to customers through internal and external communication.

Overall responsibility for the Brand image in the Egypt market and the understanding of the IKEA Brand in the markets Al Futtaim IKEA operates in. Supporting the existing business with the development of the new businesses Al Futtaim IKEA is entering.

Responsible to position the IKEA store as the “leader in life at home” in the Egypt market

An efficient and effective integrated consumer and customer engagement approach (in co-operation with all functions involved), which includes: 

• All media approach (Paid, Owned, and Earned - both online and offline), 
• The Loyalty approach (including marketing contribution to CRM, IKEA FAMILY, IKEA Business, and other registered and non-registered customers)
• IKEA FAMILY member offers: benefits (including IKEA FAMILY range) and rewards 
• meeting and communicating: store, web, magazine (digital and print) and direct communication 
• IKEA FAMILY program operation: member management tools/ insights and KPIs 
• IKEA Business, Development of loyalty program for our IKEA Business

What you will do

Responsible for the Brand Management and implementing the strategy

• Manage the Brand to ensure that the IKEA Brand identity, Brand values and key benefits are communicated properly and contribute to fulfilling the IKEA Concept & Brand objectives
• Ensure awareness of the IKEA Brand; Understand the IKEA Concept; Impression of the IKEA Range & IKEA personality; Position of the IKEA Brand; Preference of the IKEA Brand
• Contribute as a member of the country Egypt management team to achieve the best possible results and to establish synergy and uniformity across all markets in relation to commercial activities, marketing campaigns and advertisement
• Marketing strategy implementation in order to maximize sales and increase market share by generating additional visitors to the Stores
• Ensure awareness of the IKEA Brand
• Alignment of internal and external communication in line with IKEA concept documentation
• Contribution to the multi-year business plan
• Prepare IKEA Brand capital research together with the Consumer and Customer engagement manager, setting actions to improve on IKEA positioning objectives and follow-up on results
• Coordinate marketing activities between the Stores, the service office and Inter IKEA systems B.V.

Conduct Market Research in cooperation with the Regional Consumer and customer engagement manager

• Liaise with the principal to prepare, revise and implement the Brand Capital survey and ensure the follow-up
• Use the Brand Capital, ICSS and mystery shopper feedback to drive the marketing strategy, including analysing the success of campaigns and return on investment
• Provide the relevant and up to date Business Information to related business functions to support the overall business strategy for Egypt
• Understand how different consumer groups within our PMA use different Media so that we can target communication more effectively

Develop the country DIGITAL STRATEGY

• Develop on-line marketing strategies to support all commercial activities in all territories in line with the regional strategy
• Update and maintain IKEA website in line with all global and local initiatives

Develop social media strategies and roll out plans for; Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest & LinkedIn

Manage the implementation the Communication strategy / campaigns

• Ensure that activity communication briefs are clearly written and delivered to the agencies 6 months ahead of each campaign. Based on regional Strategy for each campaign.
• Ensure a close and progressive relationship with agencies to support the development of the brand in the country
• Dedicate time and effort in integrating the agencies into our brand through refreshing trainings, research presentations and strategy discussions
• Return on Marketing investment study after each campaign.

Contribute to the Market Development

• Work with my natural work team to support the opening of IKEA stores across the Egyptian market
• In particular, taking responsibility for preparing work briefs for opening campaigns
• Working with the Catalogue Manager to support the Catalogue distribution & strategy

Generate the Country PR Strategy

• Analyse the monthly coverage
• Quarterly – annual report
• Monthly PR product brief to ensure IKEA presence in the weekly and monthly print publication
• Work in an effective way with all the global PR tools like the PR press kits, releases.
• Contribute in the write-up of PRL

Annual PR and events planning

• To maximize consumer engagement opportunities, make sure the annual plan is done during the commercial planning period in line with the overall brand communication strategy
• Create and implement in store events calendar for each store in line with the overall communication strategy in order to create a better shopping experience for customers and to generate word of mouth.
• Recommend and finalize the annual PR calendar for the IKEA Brand in order to reflect and promote IKEA’s long term priorities, leadership businesses (e.g. “Complete Bedroom and Kitchen Living”)

Responsible for the country marketing Planning

• Work alongside the Regional GM Marketing to create and implement the short (1 year) and long term (3 year) marketing strategies linked to the business commercial calendar
• Follow the IKEA proven solutions and best practice when planning and implementing the marketing strategy
• Work with the Sales, Range & Com-In functions to create a business calendar working at least six months in advance
• Ultimate responsibility for driving visitor numbers upwards and increasing IKEA top of mind awareness.
• Work closely with the store on their local store activity calendar to ensure engagement/affinity and traffic throughout the year

Define local CSR projects

• Take part in IKEA Global sustainability and charity projects such as Soft toys and Brighter Life for Refugees and make sure IKEA Global initiatives are represented in online, offline media and PR
• Engage with the community we are a part of and coordinate product sponsorships with the Store and Range & Logistics teams to ensure IKEA is a part of social community.

Accountable for the Annual Country Marketing budget

• Prepare and control the annual Marketing budget
• Ensure budgets are distributed to ensure to the enhancement and sustainability of the marketing calendar for the year
• Measure the success of communications programs through analysis of Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) and research studies (eg. Brand Capital results, Customer Satisfaction Index, Visitor & Sales performance) to build a positive image for the general public and act as traffic drivers to the Store.

Support and develop the regional Consumer and Customer Engagement approach.

• Drive the design, execution and improvement of IKEA Family and plans, covering all the media processes of paid, owned, and earned media (including Commercial PR, influencer marketing and social media integration)
• Build an innovative, customer centric loyalty approach and loyalty management schemes including the development of IKEA’s Member Clubs (IKEA FAMILY and IKEA Business) to increase customer life time value and the emotional connection with IKEA Brand, in line with Global Frameworks and guidelines.

Collaborate with the IKEA Regional Office

• Ensure that the IKEA Regional Office has the infrastructure to support the expansion plans
• Identifying Marketing solutions for cross border ways of working and complexities

Required Skills to be successful

• Strategic Planning, thinking and Analytical Skills
• Effective Communication, copy-writer skills
• Good in MS Office

What equips you for the role

Minimum Qualification and Knowledge

Education: Degree Marketing and/or Management/ Economics/Engineering Departments

Minimum Experience

3 to 5 years in a similar role preferably in multinational FMCG environment or an account management role from multinational advertising agencies                                           

 Behavioral Competencies

• Interpersonal Skills
• Leadership Skills
• Project management
• Strong people and time management skills
• Business Acumen
• Problem Solving
• Confident
• Leading and implementing change

About Al-Futtaim Retail

Al-Futtaim Retail has established itself as one of the leaders in Retail across the Middle East, Africa & Asia over the past 30 years. We have developed partnerships with some of the biggest and most respected Brands in the world including IKEA, ACE and Toys R Us in the Middle East and the Inditex Group of Brands (Zara, Mango, Bershka and P&B) across Asia. We are also one of the largest Global partners of Marks and Spencer’s in both regions with over 75 stores offering both fashion & food options.
 
Most recently we have been responsible for bringing brands to the Middle East for the first time with the exciting launches of Watsons and B&Q and we aim to continue to be agile and adaptive to our markets with new launches and further development. For this to be possible we aim to recruit the best talent from all backgrounds who will continue to challenge and develop our diverse workforce which includes over 100 nationalities across 12 countries. Join us today and make a difference…

About Al-Futtaim IKEA

GROWING TOGETHER...

We are a values-driven company with a passion for life at home. Our vision is to create a better everyday life for the many people.

Al-Futtaim IKEA holds the franchise rights for IKEA in Egypt, Oman, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.