Loyalty Marketing Manager

Job Purpose:

Vivo Energy (VE) distributes and markets Shell and Engen branded fuels and lubricants to retail and commercial customers in Africa.  We currently operate in 28 countries (Operating Units – OUs) across North, West, East and Southern Africa where we have a network of over 4,500 service stations and are growing. We also export lubricants to other African countries. 

VE has existing loyalty programmes in seven OUs today and has recently approved a strategic global Loyalty Solution to replace two legacy solutions, starting with Morocco in Q2 2025. The majority of our OUs with loyalty today will migrate to the new solution by September 2025 with the focus on improvements to the loyalty programme and the customer experience following.

This project is one under a programme of initiatives improving the end-to-end customer experience across payments and loyalty.

The role of the Loyalty Marketing Manager is diverse and encompasses the development of the Loyalty Replication Framework and strategy for the promotion of the Loyalty program and campaigns in the OUs, across the Shell and Engen brands, acting as a subject-matter-expert to OUs new to loyalty and for existing OUs with loyalty.

For the existing OUs, the Loyalty Marketing Manager will work with the OUs to understand their performance and data, assist OUs in the awareness and promotion of the Loyalty CVP including the development and implementation of campaigns to increase customer loyalty – education, awareness, retention and reduce churn. The Loyalty Marketing Manager will create the localised branding for loyalty programmes across the OUs.

They will work to understand problems and whether existing functionality can be used rather than supporting new development, using knowledge and evidence of successful behaviour changes attributed to certain campaigns. “Sweating the asset” of what has been developed within the strategic global Loyalty Solution is key.

The Loyalty Marketing Manager will work alongside the Loyalty Data & Insights Lead to analyse the impact of campaigns on the KPI’s and work with the Ous to implement improvements based on insights.

Additionally, the Loyalty Marketing manager will need to create the strategy and thinking for the contact strategy supporting in life stages and promotional campaigns including the channel strategy.

For new Ous, the Loyalty Marketing Manager will participate in the CVP development process to ensure the launch CVP is suitable based on multiple factors such as smartphone penetration, loyalty programme market maturity, competitors, technological restraints and more.

The Loyalty Marketing Manager will assist in the development and delivery of the Loyalty Replication Framework, to launch faster and re-using functionality through the definition of key loyalty activities required to launch a new programme to market. The Loyalty Specialist will contribute to the knowledge library currently being built for Loyalty.

They will also drive innovation and recommend new features for development based on market and industry insights including optimisation of marketing (opex) spend to deliver the best results and ROI.

With our ambition to replicate our strategic loyalty framework at scale and pace across the OU’s, the role of the Loyalty Marketing Manager will evolve as needs change and more markets implement loyalty programmes.

The suppliers and Vivo core-project teams are mature and experienced. Involved individuals are self-motivated and competent, however there will be multiple demands on their time so prioritization and regular interaction will be required.  Some travel will be involved based on the demands of the project. A collaborative style and an ability to manage stress individually and within this virtual team are important qualities. 

Principal Accountabilities:

Strategic requirements

• Take personal ownership and accountability for the strategy of how the Loyalty Programme is marketed and promoted across the customer journey, both on and off the retail site
• Implementation of loyalty campaigns to increase customer awareness, loyalty, retention, spend and reduce churn.
• Deep dive into KPI results and data trends by OU, looking for actionable insights to build campaigns and program improvements.
• Build the contact strategy for the loyalty CVP – looking at each stage of the customer lifecycle i.e. from welcome, in life to rescue and unsubscribe.
• Understand the different channels needed and ensure their enablement for marketing per OU i.e. in app, push, USSD, SMS, WhatsApp
• Aid in the build of the loyalty CVP in new markets to loyalty.
• Manage the development of material to onboard the markets and Vendors, to educate wider teams on the value of loyalty, building the knowledge library, sharing best practices and community within the OUs.
• Identify and make recommendations to continuously drive innovations to the loyalty programmes and the functionality available.
• Create localised branding for the OUs Loyalty Programme
• Promote the use of existing functionality to solve OU challenges, ensure that the existing features are maximised across Ous extracting the most value from the investment made.

Key Challenges:

• Flexibility in working as the role is broad in terms of requirements and successful candidate must be hands-on
• Ensure all parties work closely together to deliver the required initiative outcomes
• Co-ordination across multiple OU’s, with differing languages and time zones, cultural considerations
• There are a large number of projects in 2025 requiring travel, strong attention to detail and time management
• Individual will need to understand the LJI GRAVITY system, its use and capabilities

Job Knowledge, Skills & Experiences:

The role is suited to a person that has passion and interest in the customer experience within loyalty programmes and experience with different geographies and cultures. The candidate will be skilled in the day-to-day operation and management of a loyalty programme.

Strong focus on DELIVERY:

• Understanding and experience of loyalty programmes, preferably in the retail petroleum industry.

• Experience in working with organisations across multiple geographies and languages and understanding the intricacies of project delivery across multiple cultures.
• Ability to problem solve, utilising a knowledge base focused on re-use.
• Strong analytical, problem-solving, troubleshooting and resolution skills.
• Organised and methodical approach to work and campaign design and data trends
• Proven ability to work with limited supervision whilst exhibiting strong time management skills and delivering with a sense of urgency and attention to detail.
• Ability to demonstrate supportive relationships with peers, customers and third parties.
• Ability to manage and extract maximum value from disparate teams.
• Proven ability working in a complex and ever-changing environment.
• Excellent decision-making skills

JOB SPECIFICATIONS

Academic Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree from a recognised University preferred
• Approximately 5 years of experience in Loyalty/Marketing

Functional Skills

• Data analysis
• Commercial Acumen
• Ability to identify trends in data, with practical solutions to complex problems
• Ability to work in Multi-Cultural Teams across multiple locations and time zones
• Self-motivated with great organising skills
• Fluent in both English and French would be beneficial

Key Competencies

• Loyalty program experience
• Attention to detail and quality
• Stakeholder Management
• Team Leadership

Relevant Experience

• Loyalty and CRM experience a must, nice to have payments integration