Sr. Marketing Manager - Consumer Insights

The Job:

This Sr. Marketing Manager Consumer Insights must understand the overall consumer behavior and motivations in order to understand what external forces are impacting the Ace business and Ace brand, and provide strategic direction to leaders and executive leadership across multiple departments within the company including Marketing, Communications, Merchandising, Category Management, E-Commerce, Store Planning, B2B, PR and Retail Training. This is necessary in order to keep the company informed and provide an objective voice of the consumer so that the company stays relevant in a quickly changing consumer behavior environment.

What you’ll do:

• Develop and be the advocate for consumer & shopper insights capabilities throughout Ace organization. 
• Provide strategic research thought leadership throughout Ace organization and develop recommendations for research best practices where they don’t already exist. Stay aware of research methodology best practices and innovations across industries. Vet and identify new platforms (e.g. Decipher) and bring in new vendors as needed. Identify opportunities for where research can be used to provide voice of the customer and strategic direction. 
• Be the primary internal subject matter expert on the voice of the consumer. Represent the non-biased voice of the consumer through vetted qualitative and quantitative research for both strategic and tactical initiatives covering all 5 P’S (Product, Place, Price, People, and Promotions). 
• Lead Consumer & Shopper Insights team in all custom and secondary strategic research efforts including research design, implementation, deliverables and presentation of findings. Provide oversight and direction on methodology choice, vendor selection (when needed) and analysis. Initiatives will impact decisions such as planogram optimization, aisle layout, pricing, brand positioning, promotion and ad optimization, loyalty program features & benefits, in store activation, and omni-channel behavior, as examples. Manage vendor selection, negotiations, project timelines and deliverables. Present strategic recommendations to all levels of organization including C suite in order drive improvements in customer experience, attract new customers and increase transactions. 
• Lead research related to understanding macro marketplace changes and trends including competitive landscape, demographic/attitudinal shifts, technology adoption, and media consumption. Manage relationship with Research partners, such as Home Improvement Research Institute (HIRI), and ensure research is utilized and disseminated. Oversee development of Competitive Snapshot – highlighting latest retail innovations and trends. Publish consumer & shopper insights to the overall organization (retailers and management) to inform stakeholders on changing consumer and shopper behavior. Partner with Retail Strategy and Innovation to develop products and strategies that can be tested in market. 
• Build and maintain relationships across Ace organization so as to promote the use of research and identify opportunities for proactively recommending research to benefit Ace organization overall and be in alignment with strategic goals. 
• Lead overall management and utilization of brand tracking study. Oversee methodology and ongoing updates to questionnaire to ensure its sustainability and accuracy. Oversee and guide ongoing interpretation and use of brand tracking data throughout organization and promote understanding of how to use it relative to other potential data sources (JD Power, CE Study, etc). 
• Design and lead annual goal setting process. Recommend best practices and oversee analysis as needed to guide direction of goal setting process. Recommend strategic brand KPIs and oversee development of KPI dashboards and related ad hoc analyses. 
• Collaborate across Ace departments to influence and utilize other research sources, such as ForeSee Study, Consumer Engagement Study (e.g. drivers of satisfaction), Retailer Satisfaction Study, JD Power Study to tell integrated consumer/retailer story. Provide research guidance and act as a research subject matter expert across departments to influence the design and ongoing analysis of research throughout organization and link insights together to provide holistic understanding of consumer. 

Experience and Technical Requirements:

• 8+ years’ experience managing a Consumer Insights team within the field of retail with proven demonstration of leading custom research from design through presentation, managing multiple vendors, and turning data and insights into recommendations and strategy. 
• Ability to turn data and insights into recommendations and strategy. 
• Ability to influence strategy across all 5 P’s of retail strategy (Product, Price, Place, People, and Promotions) 
• Excellent communication skills, written and verbal.
• Excellent presentation skills and comfortable presenting to executive level leadership. 
• Strong collaboration skills and ability to build effective partner relationships. 
• Confidence in when & how to apply qualitative and quantitative methodologies 
• Familiarity with sample source providers and their pros and cons 
• Experience using and evaluating self-service survey platforms (e.g. Decipher) 
• Proven project management experience 
• Experience in budget development and management 
• Vendor/contract negotiations experience 
• Solid understanding of multivariate statistics and how to apply them to business decisions. 
• Able to direct research suppliers and team as needed. 
• Self-starter, strong drive, highly motivated to make change and bring about fact driven decisions. 
• Bachelor’s Degree in Market Research, Marketing, Advertising, or related field.