Senior Manager, Shopper, SAF

Job Description: Senior Manager - Shopper (SAF IMX Team)

Function: Integrated Marketing Experience (IMX)
Reports to: SAF IMX Lead
Location: SA

Role Overview

The Senior Manager - Shopper is the Franchise's lead expert on Shopper strategy, channel dynamics, and retail activation. As a core member of the Franchise IMX team, this role ensures that brand equity and marketing plans translate into strong conversion and performance across retail environments-including modern trade, traditional trade, emerging commerce, and on-premise.

Shopper is a critical capability for the Franchise due to the complexity of retail landscapes and the importance of winning at the point of choice. This role works closely with Marketing, IMX, Commercial, Customer Teams, Insights, and bottlers to connect consumer demand with shopper behaviour, driving growth through insight-led, store-back thinking.

Key Responsibilities

1. Shopper Strategy & Insight Leadership

• Lead the development of shopper strategies grounded in missions, journeys, barriers, and triggers across key channels.

• Build a robust understanding of channel and shopper behaviours, leveraging insights from OU Shopper & Insights teams.

• Translate consumer and market data into actionable shopper strategies that inform brand and channel plans.

• Identify whitespace, new missions, and growth opportunities based on shopper trends and retail evolution.

• Develop clear channel strategies across MT, TT, On-Premise, Digital Commerce, and emerging channels.

• Guide customer and commercial teams on assortment, space, visibility, and price-pack architecture (PPA).

• Build and deploy channel playbooks/toolkits that enable system-wide consistency and excellence.

• Ensure channel strategies align with broader OU frameworks and commercial priorities.

• Lead the development and execution of shopper marketing programs across priority customers and channels.

• Partner with IMX, Creative, and Design teams to create high-impact POSM, retail theatre, and conversion-led activations.

• Ensure all activations ladder up to brand priorities and IMX campaigns, supporting a connected consumer-shopper journey.

• Track performance and optimize based on effectiveness metrics and retail analytics.

• Serve as the integration point between IMX, Marketing, Commercial, Insights, and Bottlers.

• Embed 'store-back thinking' across brand planning and campaign development.

• Ensure Franchise execution is aligned with OU strategy, category priorities, and customer needs.

• Provide shopper guidance during ABP, innovation scoping, portfolio planning, and IMX orchestration.

• Build shopper and retail capability across Franchise teams, commercial teams, and bottlers.

• Deploy OU tools, frameworks, and capability modules related to shopper marketing and retail excellence.

• Strengthen understanding of digital shopper behaviour, omnichannel journeys, and e-commerce activation.

• Foster a culture of precision execution, test-and-learn, and data-driven optimization.

• Improved share, conversion, and visibility at the point of choice.

• Strong integration of shopper insights into brand, portfolio, IMX, and commercial planning.

• Adoption of shopper and channel strategies across markets and bottlers.

• Increased effectiveness of in-market activations and retail execution.

• Capability uplift across Franchise and bottler teams.

• Robust alignment with OU Shopper & Commercial Excellence frameworks.

• 7+ years in Shopper Marketing, Trade Marketing, Category Management, Commercial Strategy, or Retail Insights.

• Strong understanding of shopper behaviour, channel dynamics, and retail environments.

• Experience delivering shopper activations, category plans, and channel playbooks.

• Strong analytical capability and comfort working with data tools and measurement systems.

• Proven ability to collaborate across marketing, commercial, and customer-facing teams.

• Multi-market or Franchise-level experience preferred.

• Shopper & Consumer Centric: deep curiosity about how people shop, choose, and behave at point of sale.

• Enterprise Mindset: works seamlessly across IMX, Marketing, Commercial, and Bottler teams.

• Influential Communicator: capable of simplifying insights and driving alignment.

• Growth Mindset: embraces learning, ambiguity, and new approaches in retail activation.

• Operational Discipline: structured, organized, and action-oriented.

• Collaboration & Agility: thrives in networked, fast-paced environments.

• Travel may be required for retail immersions, customer visits, and bottler engagements.

• Operates within a highly integrated OU-Market IMX model, requiring strong alignment and orchestration skills.