Role: Master Brand and Membership Strategist
Contract:3months
Pay: £500 per day via Umbrella, inside IR35
Location: Manchester, Hybrid
We’re looking for a strategic thinker to define and evolve our brand promise, customer value, and membership proposition—ensuring clarity, distinctiveness, and consistency across all customer touchpoints. This role will be a critical partner to marketing managers, ensuring all marketing activity builds long-term brand equity while driving short-term outcomes.
Key Responsibilities
Brand Strategy & Positioning
* Develop and refine brand promise, tone of voice, and messaging frameworks.
* Work with stakeholders to develop propositions and proof points into potential messages within the brand platform.
* Create and manage the long-term Master Brand plan.
* Ensure alignment of brand and customer strategy with company purpose, customer insight, and commercial priorities.
* Translate brand positioning into creative and campaign planning (including campaign-ready guidance).
* Evolve brand strategy in response to results, trends, and cultural shifts.
Brand Architecture & Guidelines
* Define and evolve brand architecture to support multiple tiers (e.g., own-label, value ranges, sustainability).
* Create and manage brand toolkits, ensuring consistency across visual identity and verbal expression.
* Act as the guardian of brand promise across internal teams and external agencies.
Customer Insight & Competitive Context
* Partner with research and insight teams to understand customer perception, need states, and emotional drivers.
* Define target audiences at brand level.
* Monitor competitor brand activity and macro consumer trends to shape brand evolution.
* Bring a forward-looking perspective to keep the brand relevant in culture and category.
Strategic Enablement
* Support marketing managers by creating strategic briefs and input into campaign plans, ensuring strong brand linkage.
* Shape upstream thinking on new propositions, categories, partnerships, or brand activations. Identify growth opportunities.
* Help define the brand role in key customer journeys and long-term planning cycles.
Internal Collaboration & Influence
* Collaborate closely with marketing, creative, product, commercial, and agency teams.
* Contribute to brand training and alignment sessions across the business.
* Translate strategy into usable guidance for non-brand teams, helping them “live the brand” in their work.
Skills & Experience
Essential
* 5+ years’ experience in brand strategy, planning, or marketing strategy (agency or in-house).
* Strong grasp of brand building principles and how to apply them in commercial contexts.
* Excellent skills in insight synthesis, positioning development, and storytelling.
* Familiarity with creative development processes, agency collaboration, and how propositions translate into creative output (advertising and/or content).
* Confident influencing at all levels, with ability to simplify the complex.
* Experience working in large consumer-facing organisations with multiple stakeholders.
Desirable
* Background in FMCG, retail, or supermarket environments.
* Experience in brand architecture, sub-brands, and/or own-label strategy.
* Strong understanding of customer segmentation, research techniques, and behavioural insight.
* Experience in agile ways of working and/or matrix environments.
Behaviours & Attributes
* Strategic thinker with a strong sense of customer and cultural empathy.
* Passionate about building brands with purpose and consistency.
* Curious and insightful, loves digging into research and trends.
* Collaborative, persuasive, and trusted as a strategic partner.
* Balances creativity with pragmatism; can think big but act commercially.