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Global Beverages Consumer Insight Researcher - R&D

Employer
Unilever
Location
Colworth Science Park, Bedford
Salary
£25,900 - £32,420 dependent on experience
Closing date
13 Apr 2019

Background

Within Unilever there are two consumer insight functions – one partnering Marketing and one partnering R&D.

We have two Consumer Insight roles partnering Global R&D at our Colworth site in Bedfordshire UK, one within the Global Beverages team and one in the Global Ice Cream team.

Tea is the world’s most popular beverage, and Unilever’s Lipton brand is the second biggest beverage brand globally. Lipton has a presence in over 100 countries with hot and cold beverages, and a mission to bring consumers positively uplifting and pleasurable experiences, “adding goodness at every step, from tea growers to drinkers”. Unilever’s Ice Cream brands include Magnum, Cornetto, Ben & Jerry’s, Wall’s, Klondike, Breyer’s and Carte D’Or, bringing pleasure to millions of consumers around the world.

If you have a passion for crafting impactful consumer research, enjoy team work, and have an ability to translate insights into new business opportunities – this is a role for you.

This role presents an exciting opportunity for someone who is passionate about supporting R&D with developing new products and services to better meet consumer needs and drive profitable growth for Unilever’s Beverages and Ice Cream businesses.

Key focus areas for this role are:

The key job role is to work within R&D to help deliver the Beverages or Ice Cream category ambition in Consumer Insights. This will involve working closely with the CI Director/Leader and CI Managers in order to:

Help to plan and lead CI research within the beverages or ice cream global CI programmes to identify new sources of competitive advantage for the category.

Work as a team within global CI to ensure smooth implementation of integrated research plans for innovation/renovation projects.

Job Summary:

Global CI Programme Delivery

  • As a CI Researcher on global projects you will work with CI Managers to execute integrated research plans for innovation/renovation projects (target definition, qual/quant early stage consumer evaluation of product/ pack prototypes and sensory measurement).
  • Review historical market, consumer and sensory data to help see opportunities for superior products and claims, and providing the R&D teams with clear mentorship on how to deliver these.
  • Helping to identify what consumer research (quali & quant) is needed to deliver project objectives and developing a brief for this. Executing consumer research according to best practice guidelines, and helping to draw out clear and actionable insights and recommendations for project teams.
  • Identifying what sensory research is needed to support project objectives, and developing a brief for this. Executing sensory research according to standard methodology guidelines, and drawing out clear and actionable insights and recommendations for project teams
  • Together with Technical Project Leaders (TPLs) and the Nutrition, Regulatory and Legal functions, contributing to the crafting of outstanding claims, ensuring robust consumer and/or sensory evidence is in place to substantiate these where relevant.
  • Together with TPLs developing demos that bring to life the benefits of our innovations/renovations for consumers and customers.
  • Working collaboratively with regional CI teams to inform research plans for global projects, and cascading findings and recommendations.
  • Partnering closely with Consumer Market Insights (partner to Marketing) to develop integrated consumer insight research plans for projects.

CI Strategic Understanding Programme

  • Supporting the Global CI Managers and working with regional CI teams to deliver the strategic understanding programme (e.g. understanding consumer product habits, and drivers of product choice) to find opportunities for new products that better meet consumer needs.
  • Championing a comprehensive understanding of Unilever & Competitors products within R&D to help identify opportunities for ambitious advantage.

Capability Development

As a member of the CI team, actively contributing to the development of the CI capability by keeping up to date with the latest techniques and identifying opportunities to apply within projects if appropriate.

Key Requirements:

  • Graduate qualification in human or food sciences, or 3+ years experience in a consumer or sensory insights role.
  • Experience in foods or beverages NPD is desirable, but not essential.
  • Working knowledge of consumer and/or sensory research approaches.
  • Basic understanding of statistical design and analyses.
  • Analytical thinking with an ability to identify patterns within data.
  • Creative thinking to support the development of new ideas.
  • Excellent communication skills (oral and written) to bring consumer/sensory insights to life for multi-functional audiences in a clear and engaging way.
  • Ability to work independently, together with a strong bias for action and ability to prioritise.
  • Leading parallel streams of work to ensure delivery on project deadlines across a number of projects simultaneously.

Company overview

Unilever is a global Fast-Moving Consumer Goods company in the UK and Ireland. We are already on target to achieve our huge ambition to double the size of our business globally whilst reducing our environmental impact. We are growing our business and also doing what is right for our consumers, community and environment. We are developing brands for people’s lives today and for the changing environment tomorrow - making sustainable living commonplace.

Working at Unilever means that you get to take part in this exciting journey and work with amazing people who are really passionate about our large portfolio of famous brands. We want to improve billions of lives and you too can join us in making a sustainable difference.

Application process

Online Application >> 1st Interview >> 2nd Face to Face Interview >> Job Offer

Please note: As part of the job application, you will be asked to complete a brief online application form. Completion of the form is required in order to be considered. Please allow yourself enough time to complete the application form as when filled out partially or not at all it may adversely affect the progress of your application. Please be aware that you will have to complete the form at once as you will be unable to return to it later.

Unilever is an equal opportunity employer.

Travel: 5% Travel

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