Visual Merchandising Manager jobs in Appleton, WI

Location:  Hybrid at Kohler, WI

Opportunity

The Associate Channel Manager, Brand Experience and Visual Merchandising position is a Brand evangelist; a connector, catalyst and thought leader between the Business and internal and external Brand stakeholders. This role will bring the iconic Kohler brands distinctive advantages to life in a consistent and meaningful way to win the shopper, consumer, and customer at various touch points along the consumer journey and path to purchase. This role offers an exciting opportunity to work across multiple Omni Channel businesses and different brand experience activations. This position reports into the Kitchen and Bath North America Marketing organization.

Supports an active Omni Channel selling culture by ensuring that visual moments (physical and virtual/AR/VR) are set and maintained to the Visual Merchandising Guide (VMG) direction and inspirational for consumers and customers to drive sales. You are an expert in visual standards (creating and enforcing), which includes specific merchandising techniques, fixture blocking, lighting and the implementation of all In Store/Showroom Marketing (ISM) elements such as navigational signs and all Coordinated Store Environment (CSE) signs that support events, categories, House of Brands, and in store promotions.

We're looking for someone who is naturally curious and constantly looking for ways to innovate around the consumer experience beyond the status quo. You'll use your analytical skills to identify and solve problems that others may not realize exist. Create the future with us as you work for a company that is Believing in Better, is ALWAYS creating better days and a place at the table for everyone through our trusted Kohler brands.

Specific Responsibilities

• Be a catalyst and connector between brand/strategy and product/benefits to deliver unique brand stories to the end customer.
• Inspire end customers to discover bathroom and kitchen solutions through compelling visual storytelling (displays graphics) for the brand overall and specific products on display throughout the store.
• Inspire Customers and Consumers to discover solutions through compelling visual brand experiences in all categories.
• Confidently provide new ways of solving existing problems to deliver a consistent brand experience across all store locations.
• Leads the synthesis of relevant consumer learning from multiple sources (custom research, trends, social media listening, etc.) and translating information into insights, display ideas and communications that are impactful and inspire the brand team to act.
• Stitch together multiple pieces of information/input to activate and execute each project with excellence (with or without the help of your team).
• Extreme comfort with ambiguity and ability to navigate dynamic project scopes. This is a big one!!! You'll need to do things you might have never done before, or no one has done before.
• Lead/manage collaboration with internal and external creative resources on all projects.
• Ability and desire to think and do "out of the box" stuff to Problem Solve. This is not a cookie cutter job. Should not be intimidated to role up your sleeves and jump in.
• Partner with cross-functional team members to activate and deliver display and graphic deliverables as part of twice-yearly product launch process.
• Strong Intellectual Curiosity. You'll need to find new ways of solving existing problems.
• Positive, creative, and enthusiastic, you think quickly on your feet and adapt easily to change.
• Lead project management and activation of display and graphic elements for new store concepts by translating prototypes to reality for roll-out to market.
• Own the execution and maintenance of channel-specific Visual Merchandising Guides to ensure visual standards for displays and graphics are implemented and maintained with consistency for all store formats.
• Owns graphic plan for new stores – graphic list plus specific installation instructions for each graphic element; evolves as new graphics are introduced.
• Maintain Storefront portal content for stores to ensure each location can order display and graphic replacements when needed.

What we’d like to see in you:

Brand First Approach

• Experience within a team that has elevated the brand by providing visual solutions that both celebrate and sell product via thoughtful display and messaging elements.
• You’ve been part of teams which always think with a ‘brand-first’ approach to solving consumer experience challenges.

Creative System Thinking

• Intrinsic understanding that all brand experiences and related activations are inextricably linked to each other – nothing stands alone.
• Ability to collaborate on design strategy and ultimately to execute with excellence.

Customer Segmentation & Consumer Journey Knowledge

• Studies customer segmentation to fully understand what target audience(s) need to see/feel/hear and experience in a shopping environment to be motivated to purchase.
• Works within customer journey framework to provide and execute solutions that resolve pain/friction points for the shopper while in-store.
• Evaluates the competition (in and out of category) to ensure Kohler remains competitive in a rapidly changing interior/home goods market.
• Presents practical experience of providing solutions for multiple channels.

Visual Merchandising Acumen

• Possess strong knowledge of visual merchandising processes (from concept to roll-out) that enable the creation of brand experiences via compelling product displays and thoughtful messaging designed to attract customers and encourage purchase.
• Understanding of how visual merchandising solutions can be rolled-out or rearticulated across multiple store formats.
• Ability to visualize a space and create an experience that fits the space and the products they want to display.