The Brand Marketing Director is the owner and steward of the Coretec brand. This role sets and enforces the standards that define how the brand shows up everywhere it appears, including product positioning, visual standards, merchandising standards, and messaging standards, and holds the organization accountable to them. The director is also directly accountable for building and managing the annual marketing budget, grounding it in the marketing activities necessary to create demand and achieve our Coretec initiatives, and for delivering against our media, budget, and lead metrics.

Beyond standards and budget, this role establishes the strategic marketing initiatives that govern marketing communications and media planning, owns the annual media plan, and manages all creative, media, and merchandising vendor relationships. Success requires the ability to build cross-functional marketing strategies together with the channel and customer marketing leaders, to understand multi-channel tensions, and to build realistic scenarios that strengthen the brand through multiple consumer touchpoints and across channels. Strong communication, strategic thinking, and team leadership skills are essential.This role will work out of our Dalton, GA office a minimum of three (3) days per week.

Key Responsibilities

Brand Guidelines and Standards

• Lead and manage all Coretec brand guidelines and standards, including product positioning, visual standards, merchandising standards, and messaging standards.

• Develop and maintain the visual and verbal identity of the brand, and enforce consistency across all channels and touchpoints regardless of which group executes.

• Align all brand execution to the overall brand vision, briefing internal teams and agency partners as necessary.

• Ensure products are appropriately prioritized and featured within brand campaigns and across all media channels.

• Review and approve creative assets and content against brand standards so that everything in market is accurate and tells a compelling story.

• Own all merchandising standards, including approved sample sizes, display types and sizes, and physical merchandising execution requirements, and govern adherence to them across the organization.

• Collaborate with the Go-to-Market Manager to ensure all sample and merchandising standards align with go-to-market strategies, account targeting, and the annual sample plan.

Marketing Communications and Media Planning

• Establish the strategic marketing initiatives related to marketing communications and media planning.

• Own the annual consumer media plan, including channel mix, flighting, and investment levels required to create demand.

• Own the annual trade media plan, including channel mix, flighting, and investment levels required to drive retailer awareness and loyalty to Coretec.

• Manage all creative and media agencies supporting marketing communications and media planning, including scopes, budgets, deliverables, and performance.

• Lead and project manage major campaign creative and brand shoots from concept through delivery.

• Develop comprehensive marketing plans that drive brand awareness, consideration, and product adoption across digital, social, retail, and traditional media.

• Coordinate closely with social, SEO, content, and legal teams to align on brand compliance, messaging, and channel strategy.

Marketing Budget Ownership

• Build and manage the annual marketing budget based on the annual marketing activities necessary to create demand and achieve Coretec initiatives.

• Allocate resources across channels, campaigns, and agencies to maximize return on investment.

• Track, forecast, and report budget performance, making adjustments as business conditions change.

Cross-Functional and Multi-Channel Strategy

• Build cross-functional marketing strategies together with the channel and customer marketing leaders.

• Understand multi-channel tensions and build realistic scenarios that strengthen the brand through multiple consumer touchpoints and across channels.

• Partner with customer marketing to ensure national initiatives translate into effective local execution.

• Work directly with the Go-to-Market Manager, Sr Marketing Activation Manager, and Sr Product Marketing Manager to keep brand, product, merchandising, and activation priorities fully aligned.

Leadership and Agency Management

• Set clear creative and media briefs, and hold agency partners accountable to brand standards, timelines, and results.

• Manage multiple projects from concept to completion so that timelines and budgets are met.

• Maintain relationships with external vendors and partners to ensure timely execution of marketing initiatives.

• Manage all merchandising vendor relationships end to end, including selection, scope, cost, quality, and delivery performance, partnering with the Product Marketing Manager on the specific creative and with the Go-to-Market Manager to preserve operational efficiencies.

Insights, Analytics, and Performance

• Partner with insight teams and agencies to integrate data insights into campaign decisions and optimize customer experiences.

• Collaborate with the insights team to gather and interpret market intelligence, then curate and apply it to the brand vision and marketing strategies.

• Communicate campaign performance and insights to senior leadership, translating data into actionable business impact.

• Establish regular, consistent competitive benchmarking of the brand's own areas, including key messaging, imagery, visual identity, and campaign creative, so our standards are set from the outside in.

• Own accountability for hitting and reporting the brand's media, budget, and lead metrics, providing regular visibility to senior leadership against scorecard targets.

• Monitor consumer trends and emerging marketing techniques to keep the brand ahead of the category.

• Use and champion AI tools across the brand team to work more efficiently and effectively, actively exploring where they can raise the quality and speed of our marketing output.