Marketing Manager

Job Title: Marketing Manager

Department: Publishing Strategy

Reports To: Director of Marketing

FLSA Status: Exempt / Full-time

Location: Los Angeles, CA

JOB SUMMARY:

Square Enix, the company behind some of the world’s most popular action and RPG brands including Final Fantasy, Kingdom Hearts, Dragon Quest, and Life is Strange, is seeking a highly strategic and proactive Marketing Manager to join our team and help shape the future of several key franchises. The ideal candidate will be a versatile and dynamic leader, influencing stakeholders across North America, Europe, and Japan.

As a Marketing Manager, you will work closely with the Marketing Director and other members of the Publishing Strategy team to deliver long-term franchise marketing plans, as well as craft the overarching marketing strategies for specific titles across the Square Enix portfolio of games.

The ideal candidate is collaborative, enthusiastic, eager to learn, and highly organized, able to work with external agencies and internal teams to ensure timely execution among several projects within a high-paced deadline-driven environment. Daily, you will communicate and engage with game producers and developers in Japan to influence and gain alignment on Japanese-developed games and creative direction for Western markets.

PRIMARY DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Manage products through their entire lifecycle from early design and planning phase through post-launch
• Work closely with Japanese development teams on product positioning, features, enhancements, and timelines—utilizing market research and other analysis to aid in the development of existing brands and new products.
• Develop and implement strategic product position, create marketing plans, and collaborate with all other cross-functional teams to deliver a fully integrated product launch.
• Define and set budgets with Director of Marketing, while tracking, maintaining, and supporting all initiatives funneling into the total budget.
• Plan and develop marketing objectives, strategies, communications, briefs, promotional plans and other programs to enhance sales of product(s). This will include consulting with executive management and other Square Enix stakeholders and working directly with outside agencies.
• Ability to lead and influence decision making across multiple internal teams (Square Enix America, Europe, and Japanese offices) and others to set and achieve products’ goals and objectives.
• Conduct market research and data analysis to define product positioning, as well as monitor competitive activity, marketing campaign metrics, and identify consumer needs, including post-mortems on releases.
• Manage vendor/developer relationships including communication, working with Legal and Business Development on licensing acquiring approvals, and relationship development.
• Ability to analyze varieties of data, identifying marketing trends, and apply data to produce fact-driven recommendations. Strong analytical skills a must to measure campaign effectiveness/ROI and adjust as needed.
• Maintain strict confidentially with privileged information while working well with others in a high-pressure, deadline-driven environment.
• Develop KPI’s that can be used to monitor pre-launch, launch and post-launch campaigns to ensure the project is on track to deliver business goals.
• Ensure Functional and Territory team stakeholders have the direction and materials needed to execute their campaigns.
• Other related duties as required.

REQUIRED EDUCATION and/or EXPERIENCE:

• Bachelor’s degree from an accredited university. Degree with business and/or marketing focus a plus. MBA an additional plus, although not required.
• Minimum of 3-5 years of marketing consumer brands and product management at a major game publisher or a consumer product company preferred.
• Robust experience developing and leading the timely, successful execution of strategic and go-to-market planning for AAA programs.
• Leveraging facts and data to influence large groups towards unified decisions.
• Working effectively in a collaborative team environment alongside both North American functional counterparts and offshore personnel (such as in Europe and Japan).

COMPETENCIES, SKILLS, AND ATTRIBUTES:

• Highly organized, with the ability to multi‑task in a fast-paced environment.
• Flexibility and willingness to independently navigate areas of unfamiliarity and apply problem solving.
• Exceptional oral and written communication skills, with the ability to articulate a vision across various audiences.
• Independent with drive to take initiative with limited supervision.
• Critical thinking skills and strong business acumen, with ability to quickly learn and apply learnings to daily decisions and executions.
• Proficient in Powerpoint and excel. Ability to tell story with aid of Powerpoint and use aid to energize and motivate internal and external teams.
• Playing experience and knowledge of Square Enix Japanese-developed titles and/or in-depth knowledge of JRPG/RPG games. Interest in and passion for video games or entertainment a must.
• Japanese language skills and experience working with Japanese/Asian corporations (not required, but a plus).

Square Enix America