Name: Ali Baker
Age: 24
Job title: Shopper marketing manager
Company & location: Phizz, London
Education: Marketing & Management with a placement year from Durham University
As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up? I loved animals when I was really young, so for a while I wanted to be a vet. During the first few years of secondary school I was really enjoying art, as well as science, so I thought about becoming an architect.
It was only when I was about 17 that I looked into marketing and decided I wanted to study this at university.
Why did you decide to go for a career in food & drink? The food & drink industry is really diverse – there are so many brands out there, big and small! I love how products I work with are sold in a supermarket, meaning that they’re tangible and accessible. I still get such a buzz seeing a product on shelf and thinking ‘that’s what I work on!’
“New touchpoints are always being introduced like digital screens, as well as more advanced opportunities to connect with consumers online and via retailer apps”
Explain your job to us in a sentence (or two): I manage shopper marketing at Phizz, ensuring best-in-class retail media execution both in store and online. I adopt a consumer-first mindset, consider the full shopper journey, and select the best touchpoints to suit our objectives and budget.
What does a typical day look like for you? My role sits between sales and marketing, which brings about a lot of variety. I catch up with the account managers on a regular basis, discussing all sorts from activations and optimisations, to prototypes for new point of sale materials, to store visit briefs for our field marketing agency.
Externally, I connect with my retail media contacts across our key Phizz grocery accounts to explore impactful activation opportunities and plan upcoming campaigns.
I also work closely with our brand team, aligning our key shopper activation moments with our wider ATL campaigns, and ensuring that our key visuals translate well to PoS materials. We have a weekly connect with our graphic designers to discuss new artwork briefs and review current shopper marketing projects.
Tell us about how you went about applying for your job: I saw the job opportunity on Linkedin, so sent off my CV, and then had a video call with my now-manager. The next (and final) stage involved coming to the Phizz office to meet the team and do a presentation.
What’s the best part about working for a food & drink company? Besides the abundance of delicious food and drink, it’s exciting working in an industry which is always evolving – especially in shopper marketing.
As technology develops, so do the ways in which consumers are shopping. New touchpoints are always being introduced like digital screens, as well as more advanced opportunities to connect with consumers online and via retailer apps.
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And what’s the biggest misconception people have about working in food & drink? Before working in the industry, I didn’t realise how many people are involved in the process of getting a product to shelf! There are so many stages involving product development, packaging, marketing strategy, retailer negotiations (the list goes on), and everyone must work together to ensure a successful launch.
What advice would you give to other young people looking to get into the food & drink industry? My placement year was incredibly valuable, giving me a flavour for which areas of marketing I enjoyed more. This helped me when finding a graduate scheme, and so on. I would recommend applying for work experience, like a placement year or summer internship, to get to grips with the industry.
What’s your ultimate career dream? I would love to lead a shopper marketing team.
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