Consumer Insights Manager

The Consumer Insights Manager plays a critical role in embedding the voice of the consumer at the heart of business strategy and decision‑making. This role is accountable for transforming data, research and market intelligence into clear, actionable insights that shape category, portfolio, brand and innovation strategies across the organisation. By deeply understanding consumer needs, motivations, tensions and behaviours, the role identifies growth opportunities and helps guide strategic choices, supports excellent execution that drives both short‑ and long‑term performance.

Working in close partnership with Category & Shopper, Global Brand, Innovation and Regional Marketing teams, the Consumer Insights Manager ensures a globally integrated insight framework is consistently applied across markets, delivering and enabling confident, evidence‑based decisions. Through strong internal collaboration and external agency partnerships, the role connects human insight with commercial reality, co‑developing big brand ideas, breakthrough campaigns and future‑focused innovation pipelines. Acting as a trusted business partner, the role challenges assumptions, elevates strategic thinking and ensures consumer centricity remains uncompromised across all strategies and activations.

Responsibilities

• Embed consumer understanding at the heart of category, portfolio, brand and innovation strategy development.
• Identify, frame and prioritise key business questions, translating them into clear insight briefs and learning objectives.
• Define market insight and competitive intelligence needs, identifying information gaps and selecting the most appropriate qualitative, quantitative and hybrid methodologies.
• Develop and maintain a globally aligned insight framework and learning agenda that supports consistent decision‑making across markets.
• Proactively challenge assumptions and existing thinking by bringing an unbiased, evidence‑based consumer perspective.
• Design, own and deliver an end-to-end (E2E) insights roadmap aligned to business priorities and strategic cycles.
• Lead research projects from brief development through to analysis, synthesis and activation, ensuring high standards of data integrity and quality.
• Apply innovative and evolving research approaches, including AI‑enabled tools and advanced analytics, to improve speed, depth and effectiveness of insights.
• Ensure learning is synthesised across multiple data sources to create a single, coherent narrative and one‑version‑of‑the‑truth.
• Translate data, market intelligence, and performance insights into clear, actionable recommendations that inform decision‑making and directly support sustainable business growth.
• Lead brand health tracking, market performance analysis and consumer diagnostics to inform brand strategy and investment decisions.
• Evaluate marketing and communication effectiveness, identifying optimisation opportunities to improve ROI.
• Support regional and local teams in the Brand Planning process with clear, insight‑led recommendations that strengthen go‑to‑market plans.
• Monitor and interpret shifts in consumer behaviour, brand equity and competitive dynamics over time.
• Support current and future portfolio development by uncovering unmet consumer needs, tensions and opportunities.
• Develop and deploy insight approaches across the full innovation funnel, from opportunity identification and concept development through to validation and post‑launch learning.
• Guide positioning, messaging and proposition development to ensure consumer relevance and differentiation.
• Act as a trusted business partner to Global Brand, Innovation and Regional Marketing leaders.
• Work cross‑functional to ensure insight is embedded early and effectively into strategic and operational decision‑making.
• Partner closely with Shopper Insights to deliver holistic consumer and shopper understanding.
• Influence senior stakeholders through clear storytelling, strong recommendations and confident presentation of insights.
• Manage a diverse ecosystem of external research, analytics and data partners.
• Ensure agencies are briefed effectively, deliver against objectives and provide added value, with a return on insights investment mindset.
• Continuously review and evolve agency partnerships to maximise capability, innovation and impact.
• Stay ahead of macro, category, consumer and cultural trends, innovation activity and competitive moves.
• Bring external best practice, tools and thinking into the organisation to continuously elevate insight capability.
• Identify opportunities to improve processes, tools and ways of working within the insights function.

Essential (Non‑Negotiable) Qualifications, Skills & Experience

• Consumer & Market Insights Experience: Minimum 5 years’ proven experience in a Consumer or Market Insights role within FMCG or consumer goods, with clear evidence of owning insight work that informs brand, portfolio, category and innovation decisions.
• Research Methodology Expertise: Strong research‑led background across qualitative and quantitative methodologies, with a solid understanding of methodological strengths, limitations, data integrity and the forces behind the say/do gap.
• End‑to‑End Delivery: Demonstrated experience managing a portfolio of research projects from brief development through to analysis, synthesis and activation, often to tight and changing deadlines.
• Analytical Thinking & Storytelling: Ability to dissect complex business questions, analyse data rigorously and turn insights into clear, compelling stories and recommendations for senior and non‑technical stakeholders.
• Commercial Acumen: Strong understanding of how brands and categories grow, grounded in commercial and operational reality, with the ability to connect insight to performance, growth and value creation.
• Agency & Panel Management: Experience managing external research agencies and customer panels, ensuring quality delivery, value for money and effective collaboration.
• Stakeholder & Communication Skills: Excellent communication, presentation and influencing skills, with the ability to collaborate confidently across global, regional and cross‑functional teams.
• Bias for Action: Prefers progress over perfection, quickly translating insight into action, adapting direction when needed and maintaining forward momentum.
• Resilience & Grit: Demonstrates perseverance and focus when navigating ambiguity, complexity and competing priorities, sustaining delivery under pressure.

Desirable (Value Adding)

• Global / Matrix Experience: Experience working in global, intercultural or matrix organisations, partnering with local markets to activate insights at scale.
• Advanced & AI‑Enabled Analytics: Exposure to advanced analytics, AI‑enabled research tools or innovative methodologies that enhance speed, depth or predictive capability.
• Strategic Influence: Evidence of strategic involvement beyond insight delivery, contributing to business strategy, innovation direction or portfolio decisions.
• External Connectivity: Strong awareness of competitive activity, category dynamics, innovation trends and emerging best practices in consumer insights.

Qualifications & Certifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Marketing, Business, Market Research, Psychology, or a related field. Candidates without formal qualifications may be considered if they have 5+ years of directly relevant experience in consumer insights or market research within FMCG, demonstrating strong technical and strategic capabilities.

WaterWipes Competencies to Perform the Role

• Driving Strategy: Thinks beyond the immediate role to understand long‑term business objectives, aligning insight activity to category, portfolio, brand and innovation strategy.
• Decision Making: Makes timely, well‑judged decisions using available data and insight, balancing rigour with pace.
• Driving for Results: Demonstrates tenacity and persistence in delivering outcomes, maintaining momentum and focus despite complexity or changing priorities.
• Accountability: Takes ownership for insight quality, recommendations and outcomes, learning from successes and setbacks and ensuring commitments are delivered reliably and to a high standard.
• Teamwork: Works collaboratively across global, regional and functional teams, actively sharing expertise and building trust to achieve collective goals ahead of individual or functional agendas.
• Integrity: Acts with honesty, openness and respect, upholding WaterWipes values and ethical standards in all research, data usage and stakeholder interactions.

Functional Competencies

• Consumer Insight & Research Expertise: Deep capability across qualitative, quantitative and hybrid research methodologies, with strong judgement on methodological fit, data integrity and insight quality.
• Insight Synthesis & Storytelling: Ability to integrate multiple data sources into a single, coherent narrative that clearly articulates the ‘why’ behind consumer behaviour and drives action.
• End‑To‑End Innovation Insight: Expertise in deploying insight approaches across the full innovation funnel, from opportunity identification to post‑launch learning.
• Brand & Performance Diagnostics: Strong capability in brand health measurement, marketing effectiveness evaluation and performance interpretation.
• Stakeholder Influence: Ability to influence senior stakeholders through clear recommendations, confident communication and trusted partnership.
• Agency & Resource Management: Skilled at managing external partners and insight budgets to maximise quality, efficiency and value creation.

Why work for us? “The WaterWipes Way” is underpinned by our Values of: Bravery, Excellence & Respect. We look for individuals who will drive acceptable actions and behaviours that will reflect our vision and values. WaterWipes offers all the benefits of an established global brand, along with the exciting possibilities of an organisation that lives and breathes change.