Brand Manager

The Opportunity

The Brand Manager will lead the development and execution of brand strategies that drive awareness, consumer engagement, market share growth, and profitability. This individual will act as the general manager of their assigned brand portfolio, partnering cross-functionally with innovation, sales, insights, finance, regulatory, and operations teams to bring compelling consumer experiences to market.

The ideal candidate combines strong analytical skills with creative thinking, possesses a deep understanding of consumer behavior, and has experience building brands within a fast-paced consumer goods environment.

Responsibilities

Brand Strategy & Planning

• Own the development and execution of annual brand plans aligned with company growth objectives.

• Define, lead and evolve brand positioning, value propositions, and consumer targeting strategies.

• Serve as the internal brand owner and primary steward of the brand, ensuring all product, communications and commercial activities strengthen it’s long-term equity.

• Identify growth opportunities through consumer insights, market trends, and competitive analysis.

• Manage brand performance against key business and marketing objectives.

Innovation & Product Development

• Own the brand’s new product development roadmap and multi-year innovation pipeline, ensuring the product priorities directly support the brand strategy and serves the target consumer

• Establish the brand/product guardrails that guide product formats, consumer occasions, price positioning, product claims and quality standards.

• Partner with Product Development, Regulatory, Operations, Insights, Sales, Demand Planning and Finance teams to translate brand objectives into commercially viable products.

• Own portfolio architecture and identify opportunities to introduce, optimize, reposition or rationalize products.

• Monitor product performance and identify opportunities for optimization.

Consumer & Market Insights

• Lead the development of a strong, shared understanding of the brand’s target consumer, needs, behaviours and purchase drivers.

• Leverage quantitative and qualitative research to shape brand strategy, product roadmaps and commercial priorities.

• Translate consumer and market insights into actionable strategies for internal Trade Marketing team to deliver on.

• Track category trends, competitive activities, and emerging consumer preferences.

• Champion the voice of the consumer throughout brand, product and commercial decision-making

Integrated Marketing Execution

• Own the strategic objectives of integrated marketing campaigns across retail, digital, experiential, and trade channels.

• Collaborate with internal Creative and Trade Marketing teams to ensure brand consistency and that deliverables are met with clear measures of success.

• Ensure all B2C & B2B touchpoints remain consistent with the brand’s positioning, identity and established brand/product guardrails.

• Evaluate campaign performance and lead ongoing optimization based on data-driven insights.

• Ensure all marketing initiatives comply with applicable cannabis regulations and company policies.

Commercial & Cross-Functional Leadership

• Provide clear brand leadership and communicate rationale behind key decisions to senior leadership and cross-functional stakeholders

• Partner closely with Sales and Trade Marketing teams to develop programs that drive retail distribution, visibility and sell-through.

• Lead the development of brand narratives, innovation stories and strategic content for customer presentations and retailer engagement efforts.

• Influence cross-functional stakeholders to deliver business objectives.

• Act as the primary point of accountability for the brand, proactively identifying and addressing risks, opportunities and executional gaps.

• Lead brand planning processes and facilitate alignment across teams.

Financial Management

• Own the brand budget and allocate investments against the highest-priority business growth opportunities.

• Monitor revenue, profitability, market share, distribution and return on marketing investment.

• Support Demand Planning in developing forecasts and contribution to annual business planning processes.

• Other duties as assigned

Experience

• Bachelor's degree in Marketing, Business, Commerce, or related field.

• 5+ years of progressive brand management experience, preferably within cannabis, CPG, beverage alcohol, tobacco or consumer wellness.

• Demonstrated success leading brand strategy and marketing programs.

• Strong business acumen and analytical capabilities.

• Strong Drive to win, strategic thinking, consumer obsession and innovation mindset

• Data driven decision making

• Experience managing multiple projects in a fast-paced environment.

• Excellent communication, presentation, and stakeholder management skills.

• Proficiency in Microsoft Office Suite, particularly Excel and PowerPoint.

Preferred Experience:

• MBA or advanced business degree an asset.

• Experience working in highly regulated industries.

• Consumer insights and innovation experience.

• Familiarity with syndicated data sources and market analytics tools.

• Experience managing external agencies and creative partners.