Category Marketing Director - EMEA
London (Battersea Power Station) / Hybrid
As part of the phenomenal growth SharkNinja Europe has achieved over the last few years we have an exciting new opportunity for Category Marketing Director, EMEA to join our team. The successful candidate will be responsible for leading a team to deliver brand awareness growth, conversion, GTM, campaign briefing, strategy of the product brand and select products within its portfolio.
This regional role will support all markets across Europe and EMEA. Working cross-functionally, you will develop and deliver the ‘Go-to-Market’ strategy for the category through your team. Great project leadership skills and the ability to manage several high profile category projects in parallel are a must to succeed in this fast-paced environment.
We are looking for strong people leader with strategic thinking, with a broad spectrum of GTM marketing skills from storytelling to building commercial product plans via a team. Have an eye on improving mechanisms and processes.
As ambassador for the product group, the Category Marketing Director is the key driver for the US team, responsible for the creation and implementation of the annual Product Strategy and Brand Communication plan across EU and future EMEA countries. As custodian of the product line and category, you will uphold the Global vision, scenario planning across EMEA, positioning and brand identity through localized Product Communication strategies.
- Key interface role with US VPs, Directors, Product Development, IMC - Marketing Comms, Creative, PR, Social and local countries to develop the category and communications plan
- Responsibility for a team of Snr Category Marketing Managers and Marketing Managers who own the product line plan and its GTM implementation
- This role will have excellent leadership, communication skills balanced with sound business acumen. Language knowledge and multilingual. Capable of creating exceptional marketing plans that clearly communicate the key message of the product group both internally and externally.
- Lead the Product group to create, coordinate and deliver our targets through direct and indirect partners across EMEA – focus countries DACH, FR, UK, Nordics, Middle East
- Collaborate with Product Development teams and country teams to achieve key KPIs (set by this role), revenue, volume, share, brand awareness metrics, profit and investment targets.
- Product launch materials and product launch communication, ranging and sell through.
- Deeply understand, interpret and champion the category, the market, its consumers, channels and competitors within Regional, Country and US teams and reflect in the plan
- Align, negotiate business opportunities, gain consensus and approval with US, country, Leadership Team on the components of the category plan
- Actively track and report the status of the plan, identifying and analysing areas of performance. Go deep to understand what is behind the performance and make recommendations on how to correct or offset. Work with peer group, PD, Media, Countries and wider business to rapidly escalate opportunties and build effective growth plan
- Actively respond to changes in the market and actual performance to update, evolve and implement new activities and actions to achieve plan and objectives within any given period
- Understanding of Shark Ninja segmentation and customer audiences to set communications strategy and fill CI gaps where necessary
- Lead cross functionally, seeking commercial alignment with US and countries to set branding strategy, pricing and channelisation
Responsibilities
- Leading a team to bring new launches to market. Developing a marketing plan with the regional and country marketing team to strive for flawless execution at launch.
- Oversee the continued refinement and development of all go-to-market communications and content across all consumer touch points.
- Brief creative team for brand campaigns and report on performance.
- Drive a consumer first mentality to develop relevant messaging and creative assets that embody our brand positioning and deliver clear consumer understanding of the products and brand.
- Be the category expert and leader: understand consumer, price, positioning, competitive landscape and market needs by digesting insights, connect the dots, and effectively summarise conclusions to help better inform roadmap or launch plans.
- Develop brand toolkit, brand guidelines and playbook to inform creative briefs
- Partner with cross-functional teams and external agencies to create breakthrough content such as packaging, digital, social, influencer, brand partnerships and CRM.
- Collaborate with research partners to validate messaging and content.
To be successful, you will possess the following skills and attributes:
Essential hard skills:
- Min 10 years of job experience in the area of Brand and Product Marketing, preferably within category (Masters in Product/Marketing preferred)
- Leadership experience
- EU/EMEA Multi matrix org management
- Languages
- Proposition development & execution experience
- Product Lifecycle management experience with technical aptitude
- Educated to degree level or equivalent
- Strong numeracy/commercial acumen
- Exceptional skills in Microsoft office packages, especially excel
- Strong verbal, written and presentation abilities
- Relentless collaboration
Essential soft skills:
- Creative thinking
- Self-motivator and self-starter
- Excellent communications skills with the capability to present
- Excellent attention to detail
- Flexible & adaptable with capacity to work in cross functional teams
- Ability to work at a fast pace, with accuracy in a changing environment
- Tenacious, hardworking, creative & driven
- Excellent teammate
- Ability to make decisions with full awareness of impacts and wider business
Ability to manage Key Relationships
- Internal: Sales, In Country Team, US teams, Product Development, Media,
- External: Research agencies, Business Partners, Promotional Agencies
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