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Brand Communications Director
Harry's
New York, NY, United States
Job Details - this job has expired, please see similar jobs below
Harry’s started as a men’s grooming brand that was built out of respect for quality craftsmanship, simple design, modern convenience and for guys who know they shouldn’t have to overpay for a great shave. Since launching in early 2013, we have been blown away by the customer response to our brand. Today, Harry’s has over 3 million customers across multiple countries.
As we grow our opportunities to communicate with potential customers increase, but with those opportunities comes increased complexity and a heightened need to be thoughtful as we extend. Ensuring we continue to push our thinking, strive for innovation, all while protecting the charm of our brand that has so successfully resonated to date.
About the team
The Harry’s Marketing team comprises a Brand Strategy and Innovation team, a Consumer Insights team, an in-house Creative team and the Integrated Marketing Communications team, this role would lead the latter. The Harry’s Marketing team also works closely with Shopper Marketing (which reports in to the retail sales team) and the acquisition and email marketing teams (which report in to the direct-to-consumer team that drives sales for Harrys.com).
About the role
The Brand Communications Director orchestrates all brand communication, understanding the market opportunities, identifying consumer insights to tap into in order to build a stronger emotional connection with consumers which will change their relationship with Harry’s and ultimately their purchasing behavior. This role covers traditional communication tools like TV advertising and PR but, as we broaden the aperture of what brand communication means, it also includes the need to drive innovation in our connections thinking to expand the reach of the stories we tell for our brand across social, owned content (5 o’clock) and any new channels that would help bring the creative idea to life.
The Brand Communications Director should swim upstream and downstream. Upstream, working closely with the brand strategy team to ensure Harry’s is culturally meaningful and holistically defined. The Brand Communication Director's role is to ensure that our brand leads popular culture through our brand communication rather than following it. Downstream to oversee and manage the entire IMC process – from brief definition, pulling together different partners and agencies to ensure cohesion, to evaluation of creative materials against goals. The Brand Communication Director’s core challenge is to ensure a compelling brand creative idea is amplified - not just replicated - as it travels across multiple touch points. The job requires both diplomacy, collaboration and communication skills in liaising with other teams and creative leadership in working with our creative partners.
The Brand Communication Director leads a diverse and talented team including:
• Two IMC Senior Managers who drive all campaigns across channels
• A PR Senior Manager and a PR Senior Associate
• Content owners for 5 o’clock and social
Specific work areas:
• Brand Positioning:While the ultimate responsibility for refining Harry’s brand positioning sits with the brand strategy team the Brand Communication Director is responsible for bringing our brand strategy to life in a creative & resonant way. A great Brand Communication Director stays true to the positioning and strategy but knows how to ask for, find, and create really compelling inroads & deliver creative executions.
• Define Harry’s brand narrative: The Brand Communication Director must lead the development of brand communication, planning a calendar so we know the arc of the 12-18 months ahead and what steps we'll take with comms along the way. The Brand Communication Director needs to bring together the different individuals and teams that help bring brand stories to life (in-house creative, external agencies, PR, 50C & social managers) and lead a connection agency to ensure optimal impact is achieved in market. Specifically:
◦ The role of the Brand Communication Director is to drive efficiency and increase the impact of our IMC campaigns, to think through how to gain buy in to, and alignment behind, a compelling creative brief across all the teams who will ultimately play a role in bringing the work to life.
◦ Understand other team's needs and interdependencies, anticipate fire-drills before they happen, over-communicate.
◦ Provide regular status reports, timelines and delivery calendars, risk/issues reports to key stakeholders are engaged at the right times through the process.
◦ Act as the primary source of contact for all feedback to agencies and our internal creative team.
◦ Act as the primary point of contact with insights for all strategic and creative development research related to communications.
◦ Track budget, supervise third parties and agencies, follow timelines and manage team members to achieve outcomes as outlined in the initiative's project objectives.
◦ Nurture a high quality relationship with in-house creative and external agency partners to provide them with guidance, leadership and inspiration.
◦ Ultimately, develop and deliver a best in class (top 25%) campaign on time and on budget.
• Brand Media:Lead the development of the brand media plan with the objective of delivering a disruptive media plan that accelerates Harry’s awareness growth.
◦ Ensure a process to manage the implementation of brand media is built that is realistic and pushes the boundaries vs. what Harry’s has done before. A process that takes the steps needed to ensure strategic, innovative thinking but that also enables us to keep the kind of discipline and rigor required for a brand of our size with our constraints (i.e. ensure our money is being stretched as far as it can go).
◦ Push our connection planning partner to elevate our understanding of the evolving consumer landscape, ensuring they adjust our connection principles to reflect the evolving market context.
◦ Maximize our ability to link programs and build overall brand impact from one program to another.
◦ Drive collaboration with the retail and DTC teams to ensure all Harry’s media investments can aid our sales efforts. Champion sharing of knowledge and seek out alternative diverse viewpoints to make the brand media plan stronger.
• PR:The Brand Communication Directors role is to ensure our PR efforts link in a more detailed and authentic way to our positioning to ensure we're using that engine to power us as best we can. We seek to shift from a brand seeking amplification to a brand with a progressive voice on a cultural debate / discussion.
◦ Guide the PR Manager in the briefing and management of the PR agency. Ensure a clear PR activity calendar is developed and managed against that leverages the brand positioning and ultimately the creative idea to engage a national audience.
◦ The Brand Communication Director’s role is to ensure we are pushing the most compelling points / hooks in to the creative idea, pulling out the components of our creative narrative that will generate a disproportionate share of engagement and interest.
• Social & 5 o’clock communications frameworks:
• Oversee the development of a content framework and strategy by channel for execution in 2018+, that leverages the brand positioning and creative ideas.
• Leverage the above to guide the Channel Managers in the development of content calendars with the appropriate frequency of engagement to progress the state of our audience relationships.
• Guide the Channel Managers in the process of leveraging in house creative teams to develop stories that can spread.
This should describe you:
• Deeply customer centric, must understand the Harry’s guy, how to speak to him, inspire him, and engage him with great work
• You are dialed in to what’s cool, new and relevant and how to translate that for brands
• You are able to see beyond the obvious and push for brilliant creative ideas, you have a sharp eye and spot great work amongst many options
• You believe brand success = commercial impact 1st and foremost
• You have a natural passion for building and love getting your hands dirty, you’re a doer
• You are able to thrive in fast-paced environments and adapt quickly
• A natural coach and mentor - someone people are excited to work for
• You are a learner - always seeking to improve yourself and your team
• Sense of humor, we take our work seriously not ourselves
Harry’s is committed to bringing together individuals from different backgrounds and perspectives. We strive to create an inclusive environment where everyone can thrive, feel a sense of belonging, and do great work together. As an equal opportunity employer, we prohibit any unlawful discrimination against a job applicant on the basis of their race, color, religion, veteran status, sex, parental status, gender identity or expression, transgender status, sexual orientation, national origin, age, disability or genetic information. We respect the laws enforced by the EEOC and are dedicated to going above and beyond in fostering diversity across our company.