Consumer & Shopping Planning Manager

At Diageo, we believe media is more than just reaching consumers—it’s about creating meaningful, lasting connections. As the world’s leading premium drinks company, we have an outstanding collection of brands, including Johnnie Walker, Smirnoff, Baileys, Captain Morgan, Tanqueray and Guinness. Our purpose—"Celebrating life, every day, everywhere"—guides everything we do, from our people and culture to our brands and business performance!

About the role 

As a Consumer Insights & Planning Manager in Diageo Ireland, you will help influence, illuminate and provoke the business with ideas and insights that sell more, by making the right strategic and commercially savvy, evidence-based decisions. You will also help to spearhead and shape the world’s best brand building, nurturing creative development and efficiency, ensuring all our communications are working as hard as they can. You will apply your expertise and experience in developing, evaluating and monitoring marketing strategy and activities, including advertising, sponsorship, experiences, innovation and in-trade activation. Within a wider marketing and business team, you will have a high degree of autonomy to help craft the destiny of a selection of brands from our outstanding portfolio.  

A wealth of development opportunities will exist to shape your career, through continued learning & development, outstanding training, and the support of passionate peers. As part of the Global and European planning teams, you will have access to one of the world’s most respected strategy and insight communities. The role reports to the Head of Planning, Insights & Media (Ireland). 

In this role, you 'll bring sharp insight and forward thinking to the development of marketing and innovation activity, based on consumer, shopper, category and cultural understanding, including: 

• Proactively define and communicate opportunities for growth across the Diageo portfolio and the key brands in remit, to influence the annual business planning process and prioritisation. Work with brand and cross functional teams to help enable the creation and execution of outstanding brand business plans, growth drivers and creative briefs that put the consumer at the heart.  

• Ignite deep and differentiated insight with strong external curiosity, in combination with marketing effectiveness (M&E) to ensure we apply findings to fuel brand growth across campaigns (ATL and BTL) and innovation  

• Ensures brand strategies are translated to clear opportunities to win at the point of purchase, both in the bar, retail trade and online, based on sound shopper insight 

• Build a balanced and vibrant consumer and shopper culture, by continually bringing to life the consumer/shopper and their motivations, the on and off trade environment and the cultural context (outside-in thinking) 

• Provide strategic leadership, insight/key learning throughout the annual planning process.  This ranges from measuring and evaluating previous years’ activities, to providing insight and inspiration, to facilitating workshops, to leading the category/brand/ customer marketing team with an objective opinion on the key issues to be addressed and the way forward 

• Own all stages of primary and secondary research, from methodology selection to vendor management to maintaining high standards of reporting to ensure learning is presented in a practical, inspiring way. Make judgment on which information to use and the level of confidence people should have in using it. Importantly, ensure all research is aligned with our Responsible Research Policy 

About you 

• Knowledge or experience of the alcohol/FMCG world is advantageous, but not mandatory 

• Previous Experience in wither agency or inhouse FMCG in research/planning/marketing roles, with a significant focus on strategic thinking and brand, consumer and shopper planning 

• Unbridled curiosity for understanding consumers, shoppers and culture, and ability to craft powerful and actionable insights and apply this knowledge to opportunities for commercial growth 

• A persuasive communicator and skilled storyteller - ability to influence across senior levels and proven track record of landing insight with impact in a simple and compelling narrative.   

• Excellent story teller and bringing people along the journey

• An individual who has the ability to influence across senior levels in the business.

• Good mix of numeric/data based skills, with passion for creativity and innovation 

• Resilience and emotional intelligence to build collaborative and powerful relationships 

Flexible Working Statement:

Flexibility is key to our success. Talk to us about what flexibility means to you so that you’re supported to manage your wellbeing and balance your priorities from day one.

Diversity statement:

Our purpose is to celebrate life, every day, everywhere. And creating an inclusive culture, where everyone feels valued and that they can belong, is a crucial part of this.

We embrace diversity in the broadest possible sense. This means that you’ll be welcomed and celebrated for who you are just by being you. You’ll be part of and help build and champion an inclusive culture that celebrates people of different gender, ethnicity, ability, age, sexual orientation, social class, educational backgrounds, experiences, mindsets, and more.

Our ambition is to create the best performing, most trusted and respected consumer products companies in the world. Join us and help transform our business as we take our brands to the next level and build new ones as part of shaping the next generation of celebrations for consumers around the world