Shopper Manager - Premium Spirits, EABL

Our Sales team love building relationships, connecting with customers to sell our much-loved brands in new and vibrant markets where they can thrive. They help sell our iconic brands across 180 countries every year.

We're operating across different markets, channels, and areas of expertise. Using your curiosity and passion, you'll make the most of consumer insight and digital platforms, reaching new customers, markets, and celebrations to help us achieve our growth potential. We'll support your learning and growth as you develop your career with us and work with people across our business to realise your fullest potential.

Context/Scope

Today, East Africa is a predominantly beer region, and we will continue to grow beer fast. We also see a greater opportunity in spirits. We recently reorganized our business to focus on redefining and accelerating Spirits. Our goal is to double its current revenue through the Premium Spirits division of East African Breweries Limited (EABL).

Dimensions:

Financial

EABL F30 ambition is to be build a Reserve and Premium Spirits business, be market leaders in the category and grow at: $250M NSV; Market Share: +70%

Market Complexity

East Africa Breweries Limited (EABL), one of the largest companies in East Africa, has extensive operations in Kenya including Kenya Breweries Limited (KBL) which produces, markets and sells alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages in Kenya, and East African Maltings Limited (EAML) which sources raw materials for EABL's business. EABL has subsidiaries in Uganda and Tanzania, as well as export operations in other markets in the region, and is a subsidiary of Diageo plc, the global alcoholic drinks company.

About the role:

The Shopper Manager role at East African Breweries Limited (EABL) is a key trade marketing position responsible for developing and implementing in-store/bar programs for a designated category or brand). This role acts as the "bridge" between brand marketing (conceptualization) and customer marketing (execution), focusing on driving physical availability, shopper insights, and category growth at the "moment of choice".

The individual in charge of Shopper Management - Premium Spirits drives premiumisation and conversion at the point of purchase. They translate brand strategy into world-class shopper experiences across retail and on-trade environments.

This role is responsible for developing and implementing channel strategies to drive sales, distribution, and market penetration through premium core retail and distribution channels. This role involves building a strategy and framework geared towards optimizing channel performance and collaborating with cross-functional teams to achieve business objectives.

Role Responsibilities:

• Channel Marketing and Promotion: develop and execute channel and brand specific marketing and promotional campaigns to drive traffic, increase sales, and enhance brand visibility; co-ordinate with marketing and creative teams to develop channel-specific marketing materials, Point of Sale (POS) displays, and promotional collateral; monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of marketing and promotional activities, tracking ROI; adjust strategies as needed.

• Shopper Marketing Strategy: Craft category and brand Shopper Marketing programs for scaled execution across multiple channels (on-trade/bars and off-trade/retail).

• In-Outlet Program Execution: Manage the cycle of in-outlet brand programmes, from initial brief to toolkit development, customer proposition, and final measurement & evaluation (M&E).

• Commercial Accountability: Own the in-outlet programme creation budget and deliver category growth (driving brand growth ahead of the category).

• Agency Management: Lead BTL (Below-the-line) marketing agencies to deliver high-quality, industry-leading POS materials and activations.

• Cross-functional Leadership: Work with Sales, Brand, and Supply teams to align on marketing business plans

• Distribution Management: optimize product distribution strategies to maximize availability, reach, and shelf presence in target channels and markets; monitor and evaluate distribution network performance, identifying opportunities for expansion, consolidation, or optimization; develop sales plans, targets, forecasts to drive market share growth.

• Market Analysis and Insights: conduct market research, competitor analysis, and consumer insights studies to understand channel dynamics, shopper behavior, and competitive landscape; utilize market insights and data analytics to identify opportunities for growth, innovation, and differentiation within each channel; stay abreast of industry trends, regulatory changes, and emerging opportunities that may impact channel strategy and performance.

• Budget Management: develop and manage the category/brand budget, forecasting resource needs and investment priorities for channel management initiatives based on strategic priorities and ROI potential. Optimize spending to maximize channel impact and efficiency.

• Governance: Ensure End To End (E2E) compliance of set standards in Channel & Shopper activities, agency management and Resource Utilisation.

• Financial: Delivery of NSV (Net Sales Value) and Gross Margin targets, as well as management of the A&P (advertising and promotion) and TI (trade investment) budgets.

• Market Share: Growing brand share ahead of the category (Growth in premium spirits sales and value share).

• Visibility & Activation: Success of in-store/bar campaigns, measured through visibility and shopper engagement (Activation ROI and effectiveness).

• Conversion rate at point of purchase.

• Retail execution compliance.

• Shopper engagement metrics.

• Measurement & Evaluation (M&E): 100% compliance of M&E standards.

• Educated to university degree level or equivalent. Postgraduate qualifications an advantage

• Proven experience either within an FMCG organization within commercial or customer marketing

• A consistent track record in field sales & customer marketing experience, with demonstrated ability in planning and execution.

• A good understanding and strong capability to mentor others on customer marketing fundamentals & BTL (below the line) process.

• Excellence in terms of communication skills along with demonstrating outstanding partnership with internal and external collab

• Shopper and consumer insight generation

• Commercial and category thinking

• Retail activation planning

• Stakeholder management

• Data-driven decision making

• Project management

• Strong communication and influencing skills