Innovation Marketing Lead: Front-End NPD & Insights

Mars Incorporated; Chicago (IL); On-site; USD 170,000 - 234,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Company bonus

Job summary

Mars Incorporated's Mars Snacking division seeks an Innovation Marketing Lead within the Discover Team to translate priority consumer pain points into tangible products, packaging, and experiential solutions rooted in verified human needs.

As Associate Director, you will lead cross‑functional teams, craft robust value propositions, prototype concepts with R&D and design, and run rapid tests with external experts to fuel scalable growth platforms across Mars Snacking.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree required; master's preferred.
• 7-10+ years in CPG brand marketing and NPD.
• Experience applying Design Thinking, Lean Startup, and Agile.
• Strong consumer insights and qualitative research experience.
• Understanding of P&L, margins, and business case modeling.
• Experience building external partnerships.
• Excellent storytelling and executive presentation skills.
• Comfort with ambiguity and data-driven decision making.

Responsibilities

• Lead cross-functional innovation project teams.
• Champion consumer pain points and unmet needs.
• Collaborate with R&D and Design to prototype concepts.
• Run rapid consumer experiments to validate desirability.
• Partner with customers, buyers, startups, and researchers to test propositions.
• Develop value propositions canvases and early unit economics.
• Package insights and business cases into project briefs for handoff.
• Lead foresight and signal spotting to guide concept development.
• Track milestones and align initiatives with enterprise strategy.

Skills

Design Thinking

Lean Startup

Agile co-creation

Consumer insights

P&L knowledge

Partnership development

Storytelling

Executive presentation

Education

Bachelor's degree in Marketing or related field

Master's Degree or MBA in Marketing/Innovation/Business Strategy

Job description

Mars Incorporated's Mars Snacking division seeks an Innovation Marketing Lead within the Discover Team to translate priority consumer pain points into tangible products, packaging, and experiential solutions rooted in verified human needs.

As Associate Director, you will lead cross‑functional teams, craft robust value propositions, prototype concepts with R&D and design, and run rapid tests with external experts to fuel scalable growth platforms across Mars Snacking.