The Director of Brand Marketing will serve as the right-hand to the Vice President of Marketing, working side-by-side on developing Brand Strategy, devising Marketing Strategies, and creating best-in-class Marketing Plans. Once the annual Marketing Plans are developed and budgets are aligned upon, the Director of Brand Marketing will be responsible for executing that plan and making the magic happen.

This role will sit at the center of all commercial activity for Country Archer. A qualified candidate will possess the ability to identify key challenges for the brand and develop strategies to tackle those challenges. These strategies will include developing marketing communications, launching new products, and supporting the Sales organization in its efforts to grow our distribution and increase our velocities.

The Director of Brand Marketing will be expected to work in a highly cross-functional environment, partnering with Sales, Finance, Supply Chain, Operations, as well as with a multitude of external vendors.

Additionally, this role will serve as a critical lead within the Marketing Team. The Director of Brand Marketing will collaborate closely with the Director of Ecommerce and the Category and Insights Manager and will have three direct reports: Brand Manager of Innovation, Social Media and Influencer Manager, Experiential and Partnerships Coordinator.

Lastly, this role will have significant interaction with the Executive Team in support of the Commercialization Process, Monthly Business Reviews, Creative Reviews, Trade Show Execution, and preparing for Board of Director meetings.

The ideal candidate takes great pride in their work and is unafraid when faced with seemingly insurmountable problems. Country Archer has a very collegial and familial environment, which enables us to not only work well together, but also to hold each other accountable in a productive way. This brand is on rocket ship trajectory and this role will help continue that momentum for years to come.

Responsibilities:

• Develop and Lead the Execution of Annual Marketing Plans
  • Develop the annual Marketing Plan and outline the Marketing Budget required to support that plan.
  • Identify necessary external partners (agencies, vendors, etc.) to help execute the marketing plan, negotiate scopes-of-work, and on-board them onto the business.
  • Serve as brand lead with external partners and vendors, throughout the execution of their scopes. This will include, but is not limited to:
    • Creative agency partners, including social media agencies
    • Media agencies
    • Public Relations agency
    • Digital Services
    • Content Creators
• Develop a Content Strategy to provide an always-on stream of content and creative to fuel digital media efforts, ecommerce PDPs, owned websites, and trade-facing initiatives.
• Partner with Director of E-Commerce to ensure brand consistency across all e-commerce and owned media platforms (e.g., Amazon, Retail.com, Walmart.com, Country Archer website), as well as execute agreed-upon media plan, including media spend with retail partners (retail media)
• Monitor brand health metrics in partnership with Category and Insights Manager, sourcing data from consumer research, syndicated data, and panel data
• Deploy Commercial Strategies in collaboration with the Vice President of Marketing, Senior Vice President of Sales, and Founder/CEO
  • Partner with Sales Team to understand key customer challenges as it relates to closing distribution voids, improving trade promotions, or increasing velocities.
  • Create best-in-class Sales Materials, including Selling Decks and Sell Sheets to help the team put its best foot forward at trade shows and customer meetings.
  • Partner with Experiential & Partnerships Coordinator on trade show planning and execution
• Drive Innovation via the business’ Innovation Strategy and Stage Gate/Commercialization Process to continue to grow the brands presence across channels and increase usage occasions for our consumers.
  • Partner with Brand Manager of Innovation throughout commercialization process on Project Charters, project management, new item feasibility, and Stage Gate meetings with the Executive Team
  • Ensure adequate New Product Launch plans are in place to support new items when they hit shelves.
  • Create New Item trackers to monitor the performance of innovation once in market.
• Collaborate with Vice President of Marketing on Brand & Marketing Strategy
  • Deploy the brand’s new positioning framework, which was developed in late 2023, and identify opportunities to optimize and create greater distinction for Country Archer within the marketplace.
  • Work with key agency partner in refreshing brand identity, including brand persona, tone of voice, and visual identity, which will span all consumer touchpoints, including packaging.
  • Monitor category and competitive performance to identify potential threats and opportunities to the brand, utilizing syndicated data, panel data, consumer research, and other available tools.
  • Identify key problems to solve for the brand from a consumer, customer, category, competitive, and company lens.
  • Create key strategies to attack problems to solve and outline objectives and tactics to support and execute these strategies.

Qualifications

• Bachelors Degree in Business, Marketing or related field; MBA preferred
• 7 years in Brand Management/Marketing within the Consumer Packaged Goods industry; Food/Bev preferred
• Experience developing, executing, and measuring best-in-class marketing plans
• Strong analytical capabilities, including the ability to read a P&L, glean insights and implications from consumer research, and a deep familiarity with syndicated data and panel data
• Experience writing creative briefs, managing creative agencies, and evaluating creative assets
• Outstanding time management, organizational, and project management skills
• Excellent communications skills, including cross-functional communication, executive communication, and presenting to internal and external audiences
• Experience managing and negotiating with outside vendors
• Prior experience managing direct reports
• Comfortable multi-tasking and working on competing priorities
• Exceptional Microsoft Excel and PowerPoint skills
• Can-do attitude necessary for a startup environment where we need to wear multiple hats and do what it takes to get the job done.
• Strong sense of urgency and a self-starter with a desire to grow personally and professionally.
• Comfortable with ambiguity: ability to map out processes and approaches without prior examples, experience or explicit, directive guidance.