Senior Manager, Creative

Role Purpose

The Senior Manager, Creative (Shopper) Germany is responsible for developing, localizing, and executing shopper-focused content and in‑store activation assets that bring Coca‑Cola brands to life across the retail and away‑from‑home landscape.

This is a new local role, introduced only in Top 9 markets to enhance local relevance, commercial integration, and end‑to‑end creative excellence from sell‑in to shelf.

This role ensures that local brand plans translate into breakthrough, insight‑driven shopper assets, optimized for POS, retail media, grocery multiples, convenience, forecourts, and foodservice outlets.

Working within the German IMX team, this Senior Manager collaborates closely with local brand teams, Commercial, Shopper, RGM, bottler partners, and external agencies to deliver shopper‑ready creative that converts demand into purchase, while strengthening brand equity at the point of choice.

This role is hands‑on, executional, and requires a strong understanding of shopper communication principles, design know‑how, creative judgment, channel and retail understanding, familiarity of bottlers dynamics and the ability to work autonomously without central support.

What You’ll Do for Us

Shopper Strategy & Development

• Develop shopper‑focused creative ideas and activation concepts that connect brand strategy to retail execution across customers and channels.
• Translate brand narratives, global creative ideas, and IMX plans into channel‑specific simple and breakthrough shopper creative that drives conversion and visibility.
• Ensure creative solutions reflect shopper insights and principles, category triggers, customer needs, and consumption occasions.
• Work and collaborate with central Shopper team to scale and deploy best‑in‑class shopper toolkits.

POS, Retail & Customer‑Specific Creative

• Lead creation or adaptation of in‑store and POS assets including shelf strips, gondola ends, wobblers, barkers, display units, digital commerce assets, retail media assets, and promotional material.
• Work with bottlers to localize central shopper material to local realities mastering Coca‑Cola Tech tools (like ShopX).
• Implement local campaigns leveraging 360 integrated activation ecosystem, when applicable.
• Adapt master creative assets into contextually relevant, retailer‑specific executions that respect customer guidelines while maintaining brand integrity.
• Develop or adapt creative for sell‑in materials (customer decks, visuals, mockups, display concepts) working closely with Commercial and Shopper teams.

Cross‑Functional Collaboration

• Partner with local brand teams to ensure end‑to‑end integration of creative across brand, shopper, and commercial plans.
• Work closely with Commercial & Channel, RGM, Shopper Marketing, Insights, and bottler partners to optimise creative impact at point‑of‑choice.
• Ensure creative assets ladder up to IMX and Total Connections plans.
• Partner and align with central shopper team to ensure local plans are utilising best practice and latest insights.
• Deploy latest shopper tools to streamline and increase efficiencies and speed.

Agency & Partner Management

• Manage external creative, design, and production agencies to execute high‑quality shopper assets efficiently and on‑time.
• Provide clear briefs, feedback loops, and creative direction to ensure output meets strategic and executional standards.
• When needed, produce or adapt lightweight creative content using design tools (Illustrator, Photoshop, etc.).

Creative Excellence & Performance

• Ensure all shopper creative adheres to brand guidelines, design systems, VIS, and packaging principles outlined by central OU shopper team.
• Evaluate creative effectiveness through A/B testing, AI testing tools and shopper behavioural studies.
• Identify opportunities to innovate with new shopper formats, retail technologies, digital signage, and retail media platforms.

Ways of Working & Leadership Behaviours

• Operate independently as a hands‑on shopper expert within the local network model (no central support).
• Collaborate, share and act as key community member with Central OU Shopper/IMX team.
• Bring curiosity, problem‑solving, and startup mindset to unlock shopper impact with limited budgets.
• Influence without authority, partnering with cross‑functional teams and bottlers to champion creative excellence at shelf.

Qualifications & Requirements

• Associate’s or Bachelor’s degree in Creative Design, Graphic Design, Marketing, Communications, or related field.
• 5+ years of creative experience in agency or client‑side roles with shopper, retail, or POS content development.
• German language essential.
• Demonstrated experience creating shopper, retailer, digital, social, experiential creative assets.
• Strong conceptual and design skills, with the ability to both ideate and execute.
• Understanding of print and production guidelines and confidence with Adobe Creative Suite (Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign).
• Experience working with agencies, printers, production partners, and cross‑functional teams.
• Strong understanding of bottlers’ dynamics of retail environments, shopper behaviour, and customer‑specific creative requirements.
• Excellent collaboration, communication, and stakeholder influencing skills.
• Ability to manage multiple creative projects simultaneously under tight deadlines.
• Comfortable working in a fast‑paced, multicultural, highly networked environment.

What We Can Do for You

• Shopper Impact: Drive how consumers experience Coca‑Cola brands at the most critical moment — the point of purchase.
• Creative Playground: Opportunity to experiment with shopper formats, retail innovation, and new creative technologies.
• Local Empowerment: Full ownership of GB shopper creative — a new, high‑visibility capability in a Top 9 market.
• Creative Culture: Work alongside best‑in‑class brand leaders, agencies, and designers in a creative, innovative environment.

Location(s): Germany

City/Cities: BERLIN

Travel Required: 00% - 25%

Relocation Provided: No