Head of Communications and Brand Marketing

As our Head of Communications and Brand Marketing, you’ll join our Fundraising and Communications department in leading the re-imagination of Comic Relief’s external consumer positioning, working across our organisation to position Comic Relief as a relevant; future facing organisation, inspiring joyful generosity to create a just world free from poverty.

You’ll lead a small team working across Comic Relief to strengthen and champion our unique brand, grow relevance, drive support, showcase the work we fund, and build impactful partnerships.

This role includes developing strategic and creative brand, media, and communications plans, managing our social channels, and using insight and data to raise awareness and drive action. Your team will equip the organisation with essential messaging tools and branded assets, and oversee brand governance, corporate messaging, and reputational issues.

You’ll hold responsibility for executing collectively owned activities that span public affairs, corporate communications and earned and owned channel marketing.

Key responsibilities:

• Lead in fostering a culture that thrives on collaboration and matrix working to protect, strengthen and leverage Comic Relief’s brand.
• Lead the development of cross-organisational communications and content plans, ensuring these are rooted in audience and channel insight.
• Work with colleagues across the Strategy and Production directorates to develop and manage a suite of impact and issue area positions, messaging and communications tools and assets.
• Working with senior leaders and teams, to shape the strategies for how we use our owned and earned external channels to grow relevance and build audience.
• Create and maintain communications guidelines and toolkits that the rest of the organisation can use and refer to.

Brand Oversight

• Act as a thought generator in the creative space and an ambassador for the brand, staying abreast of current trends and representing the organization externally.
• Work closely with colleagues in Production to consistently enhance Comic Relief’s brand positioning.
• Ensure communications activities align with brand values and are driven by Comic Relief’s strategic objectives.
• Create and oversee a cross-organisational framework to support teams to deploy Comic Relief’s brand for maximum impact.

Owned & Earned Channels

• Oversee the strategy and operational plans for Comic Relief's owned and earned channels.
• Work closely with colleagues in Production to identify and manage relationships with talent and influencers to extend the reach of the CR, and sub, brands.

Public relations and external affairs

• Coach, champion and mentor the Public Relations (PR) Lead and team, supporting them to oversee the efficient management of CR’s Press Office and create far reaching media strategies.
• Manage reputational issues and risks – acting as a trusted advisor to Senior Leadership and key stakeholders within the organisation.
• Be the first point of contact for urgent/ reactive PR and communications matters, including for crisis communications.

Operational Leadership

• Be a visible and responsive operational leader, ensuring own teams are collaborating and co-operating with others to ensure shared success.
• Support the advancement of diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging through inclusive behaviours, actions and leadership.
• Ensure there is quality management information for all organisational areas that enables knowledge sharing and proactive decision making.
• Build a strong, effective and well-led team, with the necessary capability, expertise, systems and processes to deliver the organisation’s strategic and annual plan.

Person specification

• Demonstrated ability to operate both strategically and tactically.
• Capability to assimilate and process large volumes of complex information and translate this into external communication messaging for a wide and varied audience.
• Evidence of using strategic communications skills, both written and verbal, demonstrating the ability to influence at a senior-level and manage high-impact, high stress and urgent situations.
• A proven ability to deploy a strong, focused sense of visual style and taste alongside the ability to clearly articulate a communications vision.
• Experience of managing a diverse communications function spanning at least two disciplines.

Desired Criteria

• Relevant international and UK work experience.
• Awareness of the issues related to our vision of a just world free from poverty, including through an equality, diversity, inclusion and justice lens.
• A well-rounded portfolio of experience that includes multiple examples of online and offline campaigns and content with a focus on storytelling and emphasis on innovative experiences.
• A successful background of change management and leading teams to maximize growth and efficiency.
• Experience using emerging technologies — VR, AI, holograms, etc. — as part of your creative approach and background.