Sr Director of Marketing

Creature Comforts Brewing Company•Athens, GA

24d•Onsite

About The Position

The Senior Director of Marketing sets and leads Creature Comforts’ overall marketing strategy to build enduring brands, deepen consumer relevance, and drive sustainable business growth. The role integrates above-the-line and below-the-line marketing—including brand strategy, creative, digital and social media, communications, partnerships, field activation, consumer experience, and commercial priorities—into a cohesive marketing system. The Senior Director leads and develops the Marketing organization, establishes priorities and success measures, manages agency relationships and resources, and partners with Sales, Innovation/Product, Taproom, Finance, Operations, and executive leadership to ensure consistent, effective brand experiences. The position owns brand and portfolio strategy, integrated marketing planning, commercial partnership, creative direction, consumer and market insights, communications and reputation, budget management, and organizational development. It establishes marketing plans and measurement frameworks, oversees campaigns and brand experiences across consumer touchpoints, and ensures marketing investments support both long-term brand development and commercial performance. The role also leads external agency and communications relationships and develops a high-performing Marketing Department with clear accountability and strong cross-functional collaboration. The role is based at Creature Comforts’ headquarters in Athens, Georgia. Regular travel to markets and occasional evening and weekend events are expected. Physical requirements include regularly standing, walking, handling objects, reaching, climbing or balancing, stooping, kneeling, crouching or crawling, sitting and working at a computer for extended periods, and frequently talking or hearing. Tasting or smelling is occasionally required; close and distance vision and the ability to adjust focus are also required. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

Requirements

At least 7 years of progressive marketing experience, preferably in beverage alcohol, CPG, consumer lifestyle brands, hospitality, or another brand-driven consumer category.
At least 5 years of meaningful people-leadership experience, including experience managing senior or functional leaders.
Demonstrated success developing and implementing integrated brand strategies that contribute to measurable business growth.
Significant experience across several of the following: brand strategy, creative development, consumer marketing, digital/social, media, PR, experiential marketing, field/trade marketing, partnerships, innovation, and consumer insights.
Experience developing annual marketing plans and managing significant marketing budgets.
Demonstrated success managing creative, PR, media, or other external agency relationships.
Strong understanding of consumer research, performance analytics, and marketing measurement.
Experience working closely with Sales and translating marketing strategy into commercially executable programming.
Exceptional written, verbal, presentation, and executive communication skills.
Ability to travel regularly to markets and attend occasional evening and weekend consumer, industry, partnership, and company events.

Nice To Haves

Beverage-alcohol, distributor/wholesaler, retail, and three-tier-system experience is strongly preferred.
Experience successfully launching new products, brands, packages, or major brand initiatives is strongly preferred.
A bachelor’s degree in Marketing, Business, Communications, or a related discipline is preferred; equivalent relevant experience will be considered.

Responsibilities

Own the overall marketing vision and strategy for Creature Comforts and its portfolio of brands, including brand positioning, target consumers, value propositions, messaging, and growth plans.
Develop annual and multi-year marketing plans that translate company objectives into brand priorities, investments, and execution plans.
Partner with Innovation, Sales, Finance, and Operations to identify market opportunities and inform the innovation pipeline, packaging, formats, and go-to-market approaches.
Establish integrated marketing direction across paid, owned, earned, experiential, retail, digital, social, PR, partnerships, events, and community channels.
Create and manage an annual marketing calendar aligned with brand priorities, launches, seasonal opportunities, partnerships, sponsorships, taproom moments, and commercial programming.
Set objectives, audiences, messages, channel priorities, and success measures for major marketing initiatives, and evaluate initiatives against brand priorities, consumer needs, commercial objectives, and resources.
Partner with the Senior Creative Director to translate marketing and brand strategies into campaigns, storytelling, digital marketing, and consumer engagement initiatives.
Ensure brand strategies translate into packaging, point-of-sale materials, retailer programming, distributor tools, digital content, events, and account-level execution.
Serve as Marketing’s senior strategic partner to Sales and translate consumer and brand strategy into programs that drive distribution, velocity, trial, repeat purchase, and retailer and distributor engagement.
Partner with Sales leadership on market prioritization, channel strategy, retail programming, wholesaler support, point-of-sale strategy, and key account opportunities.
Develop scalable marketing platforms for distributor and field teams and regularly spend time in-market with Sales, distributors, retailers, consumers, and field teams.
Establish overarching creative design direction and standards for the company and its brands across advertising, packaging, design, photography, video, social, merchandise, point-of-sale, out-of-home advertising, digital experiences, and other consumer-facing materials.
Provide strategic direction and briefs to the Senior Creative Director, internal creative teams, and external creative partners; evaluate major creative concepts for alignment with brand strategy and business objectives.
Build an insight-led Marketing Department by combining consumer research, sales data, digital analytics, retailer and distributor feedback, competitive intelligence, and cultural trends.
Establish marketing KPIs and measurement frameworks; evaluate campaign performance; require post-mortems for major campaigns, launches, partnerships, and investments; and communicate performance, insights, risks, and opportunities to executive leadership.
Establish external communications priorities and direct PR, product launch communications, company announcements, executive visibility, thought leadership, earned media, partnerships, sponsorships, and community initiatives.
Act as a senior steward of Creature Comforts’ reputation and partner with executive leadership and internal stakeholders on sensitive or high-profile communications when needed.
Develop and manage the annual Marketing budget, allocate resources, forecast and track spending, evaluate return on investment, and make tradeoffs between short-term needs and long-term brand building.
Negotiate and manage major agency scopes, contracts, deliverables, and performance in partnership with Finance and other stakeholders; assess internal and external resource needs.
Lead, coach, and develop the Marketing Department, including the Senior Creative Director and other team members; establish roles, priorities, decision rights, accountability, and operating rhythms.
Develop future leaders, coach direct reports, identify capability gaps, build succession plans, and guide departmental capabilities and processes.
Build collaborative relationships with Sales, Innovation, Taproom, Finance, Operations, and executive leadership, while promoting curiosity, experimentation, accountability, and continuous improvement.
Travel regularly to markets and attend occasional evening and weekend consumer, industry, partnership, and company events.