Meet Amina Ali, Ice Breaker’s Brand Manager

Hear from Amina as she tells us about her Greene King career journey, the rising population of Ice Breaker and what she loves most about her role.

Can you tell us a bit about yourself?

I grew up in Bromley and went to the University of Kent where I studied Business and IT. I met my partner at Uni and we decided to move to Bury St Edmunds in 2011, which is when I first joined Greene King. I’ve got a daughter, Layla, who is nearly eight years old and keeps me busy – she loves pointing out the drays with brands that I’ve worked on!

Talk to us about your Greene King career journey so far?

My first stint at Greene King was working in the GK Managed Pubs business, where I worked on the Epos helpdesk, then as Marketing Assistant for Eating Inn (now Pub & Grill) and then Trade Marketing Assistant. This took me up to 2015 when Greene King acquired Spirit Pub Co and the Managed Pub business was moved to the support centre in Burton.

In 2016, I joined Greene King’s B&B division as Marketing Executive for Belhaven Brewery. Working on Belhaven was a great experience – an incredible little brewery, that you HAVE to visit to truly appreciate the magic. Highlights from that role must be discovering my love of stouts, in particular the silky, smooth Belhaven Black, plus, the iconic 300th birthday bash that we threw in 2019 to celebrate 300 years of beautiful beers.

In Spring 2020, I took on a new challenge as Marketing Executive for Greene King core beer brands. It was fantastic to work on our flagship Greene King IPA, especially being involved in the role out of Proud To Pitch In. I was also involved in the rebrand of Abbot – this was a brilliant project to work on, taking inspiration from Abbot through the years to land on something more modern looking but still recognisable.

Then in April 2022, I officially started my current role as Ice Breaker Brand Manager

Can you talk to us a bit more about your current role?

My role is quite varied and involves me working with lots of different internal and external stakeholders – one minute I could be working on some design work with our creative agency, next I could be briefing our tv and social media ad campaign. Something that I’m doing more of now as a Brand Manager is really getting into the numbers, which I enjoy – this could be running Cognos reports, using the CGA and Power reports, all to gain better insight as to how Ice Breaker is performing, as well as its competitors. This then helps tailor the activation plans for the brand, that I’d work on with our Customer Marketing team.

What are the most exciting and challenging aspects of being a Brand Manager?

I’ve recently worked on a brand refresh for Ice Breaker with the aim to give the brand more personality and point of view and to have more standout. The new look has sharpened the lettering, refined the anchor

and made the blue pop more, hopefully giving the brand better stand out on shelf and on bar, without alienating its existing customers. I’ve enjoyed working with internal and external stakeholders such as our packaging partners, production planning, design agencies to get the new designs produced – the best bit is seeing the finished result out in pubs or on supermarket shelves.

Ice Breaker seems to be going from strength to strength, you must be chuffed?

Since the recipe was first created we knew that Ice Breaker was a fantastic beer, and it became a permanent part of our portfolio in 2019. Since then, it has gone from strength to strength in Greene King Managed Pubs, our Free Trade, Pub Partners and in supermarkets. To get the recognition from two different awards, is amazing and a testament to the incredible work that the brewing and quality team do to make sure Ice Breaker tastes as it should, each time it is brewed. To win three stars at the Great Taste Awards is fantastic– less than 2% of brands that enter the awards get awarded this level! And to then go on to be the country winner in the American Style Pale Ale category at the World Beer Awards is the cherry on the cake! Both are well-known awards and we’ll be putting them on our packaging and producing POS for pubs to highlight the awards to drive trial. These awards, along with some strong selling stories, really set Ice Breaker up for a fantastic F24 as we look towards brand planning for next year – plenty of reasons to believe in this brilliant brand!