Lead Marketing Research Manager

About the Role

The Manager of Retail Elevation – Research Program Management will have a frontline seat and the opportunity to help shape the evolution of AT&T’s retail experience. Working closely with partners across the Marketing and Growth Organization, Retail Elevation, Visual Merchandising, Retail Marketing, Digital Innovation, Sports Sponsorships, Omnichannel, Research/Analytics & Insights, Agency partners, and Sales/Operations teams, the successful candidate will help turn customer insights into action across the programs that define how shoppers experience AT&T in-store. This role is ideal for a curious, organized, and highly collaborative research professional who enjoys managing multiple workstreams, connecting dots across teams, and translating customer feedback into clear recommendations. The contractor will help manage the day-to-day execution of retail research programs that evaluate shopper behavior, creative effectiveness, in-store experience, sponsorship activations, digital-to-retail journeys, merchandising impact, and customer perceptions such as Brand Love, Overall Satisfaction, Likelihood to Recommend, Brand Consideration, and Purchase Motivation.

Responsibilities

• Manage day-to-day research programs across Visual Merchandising, Retail Marketing, Digital Innovation, Sports Sponsorships, Omnichannel, and related Retail Elevation initiatives.
• Partner with internal stakeholders and external research vendors to scope research needs, clarify business objectives, align timing, and ensure projects are set up to generate useful, actionable insights.
• Develop and manage research briefs, learning agendas, timelines, status updates, and recap materials that keep cross-functional partners aligned and moving.
• Support ongoing Retail Customer Tracker work, including creative overlays, shopper journey learning, competitive benchmarking, and readout preparation.
• Coordinate qualitative and quantitative research efforts, including tracker studies, creative effectiveness testing, pre/post measurement, shop-alongs, intercepts, focus groups, rep feedback, and exploratory research.
• Help evaluate sponsorship and retail activation performance, including programs tied to sports, cultural moments, local market events, and immersive in-store experiences.
• Partner with analytics resources to connect research findings with traffic, sales, conversion, engagement, and customer behavior data where appropriate.
• Synthesize complex inputs into clear, executive-ready stories that identify what we learned, why it matters, and what the team should do next.
• Maintain research documentation and governance, including project trackers, briefs, readout schedules, vendor outputs, insight repositories, and next-step follow-ups.
• Help identify research gaps and recommend practical approaches when existing data sources do not fully answer the business question.
• Champion the customer voice by ensuring Retail Elevation decisions are grounded in what customers actually see, feel, need, and do in the store experience.

Qualifications

• Be a customer-first research enthusiast who is energized by using insights to improve the retail experience.
• Be highly organized and comfortable managing several projects, partners, and deadlines at the same time.
• Be able to translate business questions into researchable objectives and practical methodologies.
• Have experience working with both quantitative and qualitative research approaches.
• Be comfortable reviewing survey data, qualitative findings, dashboards, creative testing, and performance metrics.
• Have strong communication skills and the ability to turn detailed findings into concise, actionable business stories.
• Be collaborative, proactive, flexible, and comfortable operating in a fast-paced, matrixed environment.
• Bring curiosity, sound judgment, and a healthy sense of “why behind the what.”
• Be comfortable working in the Microsoft 365 environment, including PowerPoint, Word, Excel, Teams, SharePoint, and Copilot/AI-enabled tools.
• Have experience with research vendors, agency partners, or cross-functional marketing teams preferred.
• Have experience in retail, shopper insights, customer experience, brand strategy, advertising, merchandising, digital/omnichannel, or sponsorship measurement preferred.

Preferred Background / Experience

• BA/BS in Marketing, Market Research, Consumer Insights, Business, Communications, Psychology, Statistics, Social Sciences, or a related field.
• 3–5 years of experience in market research, consumer insights, shopper insights, retail strategy, customer experience, or marketing program management.
• Hands-on experience supporting or managing research projects from brief development through final readout.
• Familiarity with research methods such as surveys, segmentation, customer journey research, qualitative interviews, shop-alongs, focus groups, intercepts, usability testing, pre/post measurement, and test-and-learn design.
• Ability to work with cross-functional teams and translate business needs into clear research plans.
• Strong PowerPoint storytelling skills and experience creating concise, executive-ready summaries.
• Experience with retail, telecom, omnichannel experiences, sports/cultural sponsorships, or in-store merchandising is a plus.
• Experience with syndicated or custom research platforms, dashboards, survey tools, social listening, or data visualization platforms is a plus.
• Comfort using AI tools to improve speed, synthesis, organization, and communication is a plus.