Senior Strategist (Portfolio/Retail)

Chicago, IL (On-site)

$100K/yr – $120K/yrSenior Level5+ years expFull time

Posted 8 days ago

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Job Summary

Own and drive strategic brand work across Kraft Heinz, guiding shopper, retail and cross-brand growth while collaborating with Creative and central teams. Main workstreams include developing briefs, shaping campaigns and turning data into insights for story-led ideas.

Job Description

Responsibilities

  • STRATEGIC THINKING: Maintain a deep understanding of the brands, audiences, business priorities, competition, and industry trends. You will work on creative briefs, comms plans, campaign rollouts, and thought leadership, among other things, ensuring strategic thinking is incorporated in all aspects of the agency’s work.
  • RETAIL, SHOPPER AND PORTFOLIO STRATEGY & CREATIVE BRIEF DEVELOPMENT: Define strategies for our Kraft Heinz portfolio of brands to drive cross-sell and incremental purchase during power windows, understanding how to drive situational salience at the moment of purchase/truth. Identify how our brands best show up together in these key occasions and shopper moments, delivering insights that will inspire creative teams and meaningfully impact businesses.
  • COLLABORATION WITH CREATIVE TEAMS: Work closely with the Creative team to brainstorm, generate thought starters, and actively help them hone their work.
  • UNDERSTANDING OF PAID MEDIA: Understand ad units, media opportunities, and post content options in a complex multi-platform online environment to make strategic recommendations for creating and amplifying work that reaches the right audience, with both paid and owned media.
  • UNDERSTAND HOW TO WIN IN ONLINE/TRADITIONAL RETAIL ENVIRONMENT: Demonstrate knowledge of how to plan campaigns for a shopper mindset. Think about all channels where our shopper will intersect with our message, and how to effectively communicate to resonate across our brands.
  • PRESENTATION SKILLS: Strong communication skills, excellent writing ability, and enthusiastic presentation skills. Translate big and complex ideas clearly and effectively into simple, compelling stories and presentations to help get ideas approved by Brand Partners.
  • TEAM COLLABORATION: Work with a pod structure consisting of Creatives, Account, Production. Own relationships with Central Marketing Portfolio team for your assigned campaigns.

Requirements

  • 5+ years of experience in a brand, comms, shopper, or retail strategy role.
  • Proven track record of managing national brands, ideally for a CPG or lifestyle brand.
  • History of working with Creative teams, providing expertise and influencing creative ideas.
  • Proficiency in creating presentations (PowerPoint, Google Slides).
  • Ability to translate research and data into meaningful insights that inspire big ideas.
  • Solid understanding of the tools and frameworks that support strategy development (e.g., social listening).
  • Strong background in channel or comms strategy, unlocking the right message at the right moment.
  • Excellent presentation and communication skills in a group environment.

Preferred

  • A university or college diploma in marketing, advertising, or a related field is preferred.
The Kitchen North America logo

The Kitchen North America

The Kitchen is the inside agency for Kraft Heinz, based in Toronto & Chicago, built to craft culture-defining moments for the world's biggest feel-good food brands. What makes us different? The way we work. Our team of creatives, strategists, producers, designers, and content creators work directly with our brand partners to unlock creativity and deliver breakthrough ideas at the speed of culture.

Founded in 2021
Toronto, Ontario, CAN
167 employees (104 in marketing)

Traffic Signals

Monthly Visitors
151.5K
Monthly Google Ads Budget
$13.4K
Traffic Source Mix
Search
58.7%
Direct
32.6%
Referral
6%
Social
2.2%
Paid
0.4%

Headcount Trend

Current headcount: ~167

Marketing Team

Marketing Team Size
64 (38% of company)
Median Tenure
1.1 years
Marketing Roles Posted (Last 30 Days)
4