Freelance Visual Merchandising Manager

Our client is a leading global beauty brand currently looking for a freelance visual merchandising manager with strong project management skills to join their VM team on a 6 months fixed term contract.

Offices are in London and they are working 3 days in office / 2 days remote.

This position falls inside IR35/via umbrella on a rate of £220-250 per day - starting asap.

The Role
Working on 4 luxury fashion houses brands within the group the Visual Merchandising Manager will have a unique opportunity to plan and implement omni-channel digital activation strategies across a wide range of e-retailers while accelerating and optimizing the consumer experience.

With a continued focus on driving brand awareness, you will activate brand and product campaigns with a consumer-centric and data-led approach. Your results and learnings will be shared and integrated in future campaigns, and you will partner with the wider team to continuously raise the bar in the digital to deliver improved customer journeys and engagement.

This role with report into the Brand Activation Manager and will have support from a Visual Merchandising Intern.

You will

• Design and implement launch and permanent in-store activations grounded in shopper insights and retail data. In doing so, ensure that the brand's image standards/guidelines are met and that online and offline customer experiences link seamlessly to (and benefit from) each other (e.g. QR codes, beauty tech)
• Ongoing Brand Expression: Define, rollout out & manage the permeant identity of the brand across retail instore merchandising
• Represent the VM team & ensure to share project timelines & updates with higher management
• Work as part of a collaborative team with Retail Design to ensure a strong VM expression throughout all customer touch points (temporary & permanent)
• Develop new & innovative designs with local suppliers to enhance the customer journey
• Create and project manage your own inspirational & innovative VM projects for our brand animations, using the international creative concepts as inspiration for the UK'
• Attend & support the team with installations, ensuring a smooth implementation for launch
• Manage external suppliers, designers & production teams across all areas of the business.
• Contribute to management of the VM annual budget
• Forecast upcoming budgets for the upcoming year
• Forecast book orders, with a clear rationale whilst ensuring budget & delivery timelines are respected.
• Negotiate, implementand analyse across retailers/ internal stakeholders and suppliers in order to reach the best outcome.

You will have...

• Understand & Integrate Market 'specificities.
• Understand customer path & shopper experience's rules.
• Lead design innovation and approaches all projects with a creative eye.
• Showcase and build brand's visual identity to build customer centric retail concepts.
• Create and design visual concepts to animate a consistent customer path, launches and catalogue.
• Define & ensure high quality standards of animation items.
• Provide a 360 approach to launches considering all customer touchpoints within the customer journey and pathway to purchase.
• Adapt the retail concept according to the distribution channel or customer profile.
• Ensures technical and legal compliance regarding the production.
• Cooperates with 360° internal & external stakeholders to guarantee consistent retail experience.
• Pilots & monitors animations to ensure these are in line with timelines and budget.
• Lead and motivate a VM team to deliver excellence.
• Guaranties the ROI of POS in line with business objectives.
• Negotiates with retailers about staging and implementations.
• Monitors POS performance and drives it according to local strategy.
• Strong organizational skills and ability to work to strict deadlines and in a time pressured environment.
• Luxury, beauty background an advantage.

Please send CV and portfolio stating your day rate expectations.

Creative Recruitment is an equal opportunity employer and do not discriminate based on race, religion, gender, age, sexuality, gender identification, or physical ability.