Senior Manager, Connections & Media (Hybrid - Atlanta, GA)

Our Customer is an American multinational beverage corporation headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia. Their many interests include the manufacturing, retailing, and marketing of nonalcoholic beverage concentrates and syrups. They are passionate about beverages around the world, with around 200 brands and 700,000+ employees across the company and bottling partners. They take deliberate action to nurture an inclusive culture that is grounded in their company purpose, to refresh the world and make a difference. They believe their culture is one of the reasons their company continues to thrive after 130+ years.

We are seeking a Senior Manager (Connections & Media) on a contract basis who will support the Customer’s business needs. This role is Hybrid with (3 days in office, 2 days remote).

NOTE: Candidates must have their own laptops, the customer is not providing laptops to contractors at this time

Details:

• The Senior Manager, Connections & Media is responsible—together with Brand, IMX, Content, and the cross-functional marketing community—for building and orchestrating best-in-class, end-to-end (E2E) connection plans across the most relevant paid, earned, owned, and shared touchpoints for the U.S. market.
• This leader translates business strategy into communications strategy and an optimal connections architecture, develops prioritized investment strategies, and ensures plans are fully integrated with core creative ideas to deliver brand and commercial objectives.
• The role also oversees media investment negotiations and activation in partnership with our agency ecosystem, ensuring governance, brand safety, and measurement are embedded throughout the planning and execution cycle.

Responsibilities:

Connections Strategy & Planning (E2E)

• Lead the development of consumer-first, audience-led connection strategies and market-appropriate plans across paid, earned, owned, and shared channels.
• Translate brand objectives into clear communications architecture, journeys, and flights that balance upper-funnel brand building with lower-funnel commerce outcomes.
• Integrate connection plans with core creative platforms and content assets, ensuring platform-specific creative and placements.
• Partner with national and field teams to de-average national assumptions where relevant and reflect local consumer, competitive, and customer dynamics.

Investment Strategy & Activation Oversight

• Develop budget allocations and channel mix recommendations based on opportunity sizing, historical performance, and market signals.
• Provide strategic direction for media investment and act as day-to-day steward with agency partners across TV/CTV, audio, OOH, programmatic, social, search, and emerging formats.
• Oversee trafficking, pacing, quality control, brand safety, and compliance; surface optimization recommendations and implications for future cycles.
• Direct and/or support negotiations of paid media investments in partnership with agencies to maximize effectiveness and efficiency.

Audience, Data & Insights

• Leverage 1st/2nd/3rd-party data and unified data platforms to refine audience strategies (e.g., geo-segmentation, propensity, lookalike modeling).
• Identify high-value cohorts, media consumption patterns, and retailer/shopper contexts to personalize messaging and placements.
• Craft clear, data-grounded briefs for agencies; challenge legacy assumptions and pilot new channels/formats for hard-to-reach audiences.

Measurement & Analytics Integration

• Set brand- and market-level KPIs (e.g., ROAS, incremental sales lift, brand lift, foot traffic) and ensure tracking/tagging are in place.
• Partner with Marketing Analytics/Insights on MMM, MTA, lift studies, and competitive spend analyses; translate findings into optimizations.
• Lead post-mortems to diagnose strategy/creative/execution drivers, codify learnings, and feed a continuous test-and-learn loop.

Cross-Functional Alignment & Integration

• Serve as the bridge between Media and Brand, IMX, Creative, PR/Comms, FLM/Commercial, and Customer/Retail teams to embed connections into broader plans.
• Translate business priorities (e.g., driving trial for a new cohort or supporting a key customer initiative) into actionable, audience-first media briefs.
• Maintain tight feedback loops during execution, sharing performance updates and rapidly reflecting budget, promo, or inventory changes in plans.

Agency & Partner Management

• Provide clear strategic direction to agency teams; uphold high standards in planning rigor, creativity, and operational excellence.
• Evaluate agency performance against benchmarks and recommend resource or scope adjustments where needed.
• Identify, nurture, and leverage external partnerships, including retail media networks and platform partners.

Innovation

• Scout, pilot, and scale modern activation opportunities (e.g., CTV/addressable, dynamic DOOH, local creators/influencers, shoppable/social commerce).
• Champion AI-powered tools for budget allocation, audience expansion, and creative personalization; set hypotheses and measurement plans for each pilot.
• Document learnings from both successful and unsuccessful tests to sharpen future efforts.

Governance, Brand Safety & Enablement

• Ensure adherence to brand safety, privacy, and data governance policies; uphold platform guidelines and creative standards.
• Contribute to enterprise capability building by sharing best practices, playbooks, and case studies for connections excellence.

Leadership & Development

• Identify capability gaps (e.g., retail media, analytics fluency) and drive training plans with IMX leadership.
• Promote a culture of curiosity, accountability, and continuous improvement across internal teams and agencies.

Qualifications & Requirements

Education

• Bachelor’s degree in Marketing, Communications, Business, or related field required; MBA or advanced degree is a plus (marketing/analytics focus preferred).

Experience

• 8–10+ years of progressive experience in media strategy/planning/buying with significant national and/or regional market ownership.
• Proven track record delivering measurable outcomes across omnichannel campaigns and partnering with agencies/platforms.
• Experience connecting media to e-commerce/in-store outcomes; retail media networks and shoppable formats strongly preferred.
• Has operated within highly matrixed, cross-functional organizations; CPG experience a plus.

Media & Channel Expertise

• Deep knowledge across TV/CTV/addressable, audio, OOH, programmatic, paid social, search, and multicultural media.
• High level of acumen on digital media (including programmatic) and paid social; understands how channels integrate in a modern mix.
• Experience with integrated media partnerships and large, multi-channel campaigns.

Data & Analytics Savvy

• Comfortable interpreting MMM, MTA, brand lift, test-and-control, and competitive analyses; adept at turning insights into optimizations.
• Hands-on familiarity with MarTech/AdTech stacks (e.g., CDP/DMP/DSP), clean rooms, and identity solutions to inform planning and personalization.
• Understanding of media measurement across the full funnel and application of learnings to future planning.

Leadership & Collaboration

• Strong people leadership and agency management experience; inspires cross-functional teams and secures alignment.
• Exceptional collaborator with Brand, Creative, IMX, FLM/Commercial, PR/Comms, and Field/Customer teams.

Communication & Project Management

• Clear, compelling communicator who simplifies technical concepts; strong storytelling that ties media to business outcomes.
• Outstanding project management and organization; manages multiple plans and timelines in a fast-paced environment.

Technical Skills & Competencies

• Strategic thinking and ideation; connections planning across paid/earned/owned/shared touchpoints.
• Financial acumen and budget management; negotiation and influencing skills.
• Data-driven mindset with analytics fluency and comfort with experimentation (test-and-learn).
• Proficiency with common productivity and analytics tools (e.g., Microsoft 365, analytics dashboards/platforms).

We offer a competitive salary range for this position. Most candidates who join our team are hired at the median of this range, ensuring fair and equitable compensation based on experience and qualifications.

Contractor benefits are available through our 3rd Party Employer of Record (Available upon completion of waiting period for eligible engagements) Benefits include: Medical, Dental, Vision, 401k.

An Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, or protected veteran status and will not be discriminated against on the basis of disability.