Activation Manager

🔍 Activation Manager, Grocery

📍 Location: Leeds (Hybrid)

💷 Salary: Competitive salary plus bonus

🌟 Level: Manager

🏢 Brand: FMCG Drinks / Shopper Marketing

🚀 About the Role

We’re working with a well known, independent drinks brand who are looking for an Activation Manager to join their team in Leeds and lead shopper activation across their grocery customers.

They’re a small team behind a big brand. It’s a household name in UK grocery, with an ambitious NPD pipeline and plenty of growth ahead.

In this role you’ll be the grocery activation expert. You’ll turn customer objectives and brand plans into standout through the line shopper campaigns, covering activation planning, creative development, retailer media and getting everything into stores on time and on budget.

You’ll be juggling a lot, so one thing matters more than anything: you’ll need to be a brilliant project manager who loves grocery retail. Someone who can take a brief all the way from idea to shelf and keep retailers, agencies and internal teams aligned along the way.

If you’re a shopper or customer marketer who gets excited about retail media, store visits and seeing your work in the aisles, we’d love to hear from you.

🎯 What You’ll Be Doing

✅ Building grocery activation plans that answer agreed briefs, using customer and shopper insight to recommend the message, mechanic, channel mix, timing and spend.

✅ Building annual and ad hoc activation plans with the Customer Planning Manager and account teams around promotional cycles, launches and brand priorities, and bringing ideas for seasonal activity, on pack promotions, sampling and gift with purchase.

✅ Owning critical paths, creative and agency briefs, asset specs, approvals and delivery across in store, digital and retailer media touchpoints.

✅ Managing agencies, production suppliers and retailer contacts so that artwork and point of sale arrive on time, within budget and to a high standard.

✅ Running day to day activation with retailer media teams, including monthly partner meetings, confirmed bookings and live dates, and a clear record of what’s running, where and at what cost.

✅ Protecting a store visit day every fortnight to check visibility, pricing and promotional execution, review competitor activity and turn what you see into insight for future campaigns.

✅ Owning the grocery trade press calendar and campaign budgets, and sending monthly activation reports and post campaign analysis to the Customer Planning Manager and Marketing.

🌟 What You’ll Bring

✅ Proven FMCG shopper marketing, customer marketing or activation experience, including end to end campaign delivery for grocery customers.

✅ Hands on retailer media experience, plus the confidence to coordinate retailers, agencies and suppliers against clear commercial and brand objectives.

✅ Strong project management skills across briefs, creative assets, production, approvals, budgets and deadlines, with great attention to detail.

✅ The ability to read shopper and performance data and spot the activation opportunities in it.

✅ Confident written and verbal communication, including writing creative briefs and presenting to customers.

✅ A proactive, roll your sleeves up approach to store visits, problem solving and working with Sales, Category, Brand and Finance.

✅ A genuine passion for drinks brands and great retail execution.

⭐ Bonus Points

⭐ Experience in alcoholic drinks or another fast paced FMCG category.

⭐ Existing relationships with grocery retail media teams or shopper marketing agencies.

⭐ Experience working with trade press and coordinating NPD announcements.

🎁 Why Join?

🍹 Household name: Work on a much loved drinks brand with an exciting NPD pipeline.

🚀 Real ownership: Own grocery activation from first idea to finished execution in store.

🏪 See your work in action: Regular store visits mean you’ll see your campaigns on shelf and the difference they make.

🎨 Plenty of variety: From on pack promotions and sampling to retailer media and trade press, no two weeks are the same.

🤝 Independent spirit: Join a small, passionate team with an entrepreneurial, one team culture where everyone mucks in.

🏡 Hybrid working: Three days in the Leeds office and two days at home, plus a competitive salary and bonus.

🌟 Sound Like Your Kind of Role?

If you’re a shopper or customer marketer who loves grocery retail and enjoys making plans happen in store, this could be a great next step for you.

If you’ve got hands on retailer media experience, strong project management skills and a real passion for drinks brands, we’d love to have a chat.

Apply today!