Communications Manager
Salary: £38,000 to £42,000 annually, dependent on experience
Annual Leave entitlement: 25 days (plus 10 bank holidays)
Working hours: Full time – permanent
Location: Ratho, Edinburgh / Hybrid-working
Reporting to: The Communications Manager will report to the Head of Brands & Communications.
Closing date for applications: Thursday 31st of October 2024
Please send CV and covering letter to: Humanresources@foodanddrink.scot with the title of the job you are applying for in the subject line.
JOB SUMMARY
Reporting to, and working closely with, the Head of Brands & Communications, you will be responsible for developing and implementing our PR and media strategy, building our reputation and ensuring effective media coverage. You will draft or oversee the creation of media releases (working with our PR agency when required), forge relationships with journalists and key influencers and manage the response to ‘crisis’ situations.
The Communications Manager is responsible for developing and delivering communication campaigns to support our membership engagement, event programme and industry leadership role, with the aim of helping to secure, sustain and grow Scotland’s food and drink sector.
ABOUT THE ROLE
- Create a range of appropriate methods to achieve maximum positive coverage for Scotland Food & Drink such as press releases, quotes, comment pieces, web copy, identifying and supporting spokespeople and writing thought leadership articles or blogs.
- Deal with breaking news and reputation/crisis issues as part of routine media management as well as identifying opportunities to raise the profile of Scotland Food & Drink.
- Analyse campaign insights and results, reporting to internal stakeholders and implementing continuous campaign changes.
- Build and manage processes for successful campaign implementation, finding efficiencies and best practices to improve workflow management across the team and wider organisation.
- Manage regular communication between involved team members & keep them updated on campaign status and where resource will be needed.
- Build and maintain regular contact with journalists across all platforms, including business, trade and food and drink press, and to work to maximise the value of these relationships.
- Contribute to regular and accurate media monitoring through collection and analysis of data and reporting through tools as required.
- Work with colleagues across the Brands & Communications team to support with content, media relations and other communications channels.
- Lead on the communications for Scottish Food & Drink September.
- Support the Head of Brands & Communications with stakeholder engagement including the Scottish Food & Drink Partnership communications group, Brand Scotland and the Scottish Government.
- Work closely with the Head of Brands & Communications to plan and integrate activity into wider communications and membership engagement activity.
ABOUT YOU
The successful candidate will have:
- Press and media communications experience
- Monitoring of campaigns and understanding analytical data
- Strong news sense and understanding of Scottish and national press, ideally also within the food and drink B2B sector
- An enthusiastic proactive can-do attitude with an ability to multi-task
- Outstanding planning and project management skills
- Stakeholder management experience
- Experience in managing multiple communications campaigns of varying size successfully and independently at any one time
- Excellent communication skills with project teams and external agencies
- Excellent copy writing and proofing skills for both long and shortform copy
- Experience of working with creative and PR agencies
- Ability to manage campaign budgets
- Strong administrative and project planning skills
- A passion for the Scottish food and drink industry and a motivation to see the industry succeed
WORKING AT SCOTLAND FOOD & DRINK
Scotland Food & Drink is the industry leadership organisation tasked with driving responsible growth for the sector. We are also a membership organisation with over 420 companies at our heart.
Working with us gives you an opportunity to be part of one of the most exciting and innovative industries in Scotland.
Our culture and our people are core to delivering our diverse and collaborative work. We have work/life balance as one of our core values and we have a benefits package offering a pension scheme, 35 days holiday (plus your birthday), enhanced MAT and Paternity benefits, a flexible working policy and a cycle-to-work scheme. As well as opportunities to socialise and attend industry events and dinners.
We believe working with us should be a hugely positive experience, our core values are:
Ambition – we are passionate about making a difference
Collaboration - our impact comes from harnessing the individual strengths of our people and our partners, forging a strong team spirit. We have each other’s backs
Respect – we all set the tone, taking personal responsibility for our actions, embracing empathy and generating a world class external reputation
Balance - work is important, life is everything. Success is doing both well
We are also an equal opportunity employer, and we recognise that diversity and inclusion is a journey, and we are committed to learning, listening and evolving to become more diverse, equitable and inclusive.