Brand Manager

About the job

Reporting to the Director of Marketing, the Brand Manager – key function is to spearhead overarching thought leadership, marketing programs spanning CONSUMER FACING, CUSTOMER FACING and BOTTLER FACING activities. Includes managing celebrity endorsements, events as well as sales program development, digital/social content development and serves as internal BRAND CHAMPION, driving and developing positioning, selling stories and contributing to innovation ideation.

Essential Job Functions

Brand Leadership:

• Create a compelling sense of direction for the brand. Develop clear brand strategies and deliver annual brand plans to meet revenue and profit goals. Communicate business plans, results, and key initiatives to internal stakeholders effectively and efficiently.

Brand Strategy:

• Lead articulation of brand positioning, product architecture, brand guardrails; and ensure all activities support the brand positioning.

Business Analytics:

• Demonstrate a deep understanding of drivers of performance of assigned category and brand. Identify opportunities and issues to drive brand growth and profitability. Responsible for forecast accuracy of ongoing demand to ensure strong in-market execution.
• Marketing Planning/Communications: Collaborate with brand team to develop compelling brand briefs and implement high impact brand marketing programs.

Industry Pulse:

• Maintain sound working knowledge of industry trends, competitive set and general drink landscape as it relates.

Sales/Shopper:

• Partner with Sales to develop channel strategies and drive business at key customers, including implications for pricing and sizing, evaluate channel specific needs, identify business opportunities, and track new item distribution and performance.
• Insights: Collaborate with insights team to leverage research (historical, secondary) and insights (consumer and supplier research, trends) to drive business planning and brand actions and ensure continuous learning plan.

Digital/Social:

• Develop campaign briefs and guide digital/social teams to align campaigns with Marketing pillars and strategies.

People Management:

• Supervise, coach and develop Product Managers and work closely with cross functional partners to develop and retain talent.
• Initiate and oversee sponsorships of events, platforms and influencers.
• Assist with and actively appropriate advertising agencies , generate briefs, provide ideation and concepts.
• Collaboratively work with Field Marketing and Shopper Marketing on identifying national, regional and customer specific platforms and initiatives.
• Work with various functional areas such as Events, Creative, Finance, Sales, P-O-S, New Product Development, Legal, HR, and Executive Management to ensure the Brand Marketing program is running effectively and efficiently.
• Ensure that the Brand Marketing initiatives are woven into Digital Marketing’s execution through websites, social media properties, videos and ads.
• Develop and maintain strong relationships with key event promoters, PR firms, and various media companies in the various relevant genres.
• Remain current on the latest trends within the relevant genres of training and active lifestyle culture.
• Create and distribute updates of Marketing content to the organization such as promotion presentations, event recaps, sales meeting presentations, etc.
• Strong public speaking and presentation skills.

Position Requirements

• Manager level or higher experience (3-5 years) in the field of brand marketing with emphasis on entertainment/sports/wellness marketing and bottler support – preferably working for an established brand relevant to Wellness Drinks, Sports Drinks, Enhanced Water and/or Energy drinks.
• Must have thorough knowledge of bottler dynamics, sales rally management, and incentive development.
• Experience developing and implementing annual marketing plans and budgets.
• Ability to identify, network and build key relationships in the sports/fitness/entertainment industry.
• Must have experience with negotiating sponsorship agreements, managing celebrities and related full 360 programming
• Experience overseeing content creation and managing social media.
• Must be living in and entrenched in a very active lifestyle.
• Highly motivated self-starter with a strong sense of urgency.
• Strong organizational, communication and personnel management skill.
• The ability to be flexible and excel at multitasking in a positive manner.
• Experience effectively coaching and managing a cross-functional team.
• Must have a bias toward action.
• Must be a collaborative team player.
• Must be decisive and enforce brand standards.
• Ability to travel up to 25% (meetings, shows, events, content production, etc.)
• Candidate should possess a bachelor’s degree in business or marketing.
• Strong knowledge in Microsoft Office (PowerPoint, Excel, Word), Microsoft Outlook, the Internet and social media.

24 Seven Talent