I came across what looks to be a cool hot sauce company in Austin, TX by the name of Yellowbird. Nice memorable name. Playful and fun logo. The website that is bold and visual. I even dug deeply into the site and found in the About Section, a suggestion that birds aren’t bothered by the heat of hot peppers — a tie to the brand name.
Yellowbird, I also noticed, was looking for a director of marketing.
Following are 15 things they are seeking in a candidate:
- Be the voice and advocate of the customer within the organization
- Work with Leadership to ideate and create quarterly and annual marketing initiatives and budgets and ensure tip-to-tail execution
- Leverage data to plan, optimize, and report on marketing efforts
- Help create the brand story in the world and evolve the brand and voice over time
- Grow market share and overall brand awareness
- Plan and manage field marketing, sampling, and event activities on a national scale using internal and external resources
- Coordinate with sales team on shopper marketing initiatives and activities
- Work with multiple internal stakeholders including but not limited to creative, finance, innovation and others to coordinate projects, develop messaging and produce marketing materials for various communications and events
- Utilize best practices to own or assist with project management, marketing team planning, reporting, operations, budget, and contracts
- Communicate regularly and clearly with Yellowbird team members to maintain consistent forward momentum
- Use company tools and systems to store files, manage vendor relationships, stay on top of communication, and manage projects and timelines
- Ensure that all marketing and communication processes are continuously evaluated for proper operation, relevance, efficiency and utilization
- Continually assess and introduce process improvement measures.
- Lead, manage, and develop your team to deliver exceptional results
- Manage cohesive working relationships with all other personnel and stakeholders to ensure unified and effective promotional efforts
All of these functions are important. Cut and paste important. But they are also very much tactical. I’d be hard pressed to see any strategic focus here. And that was also reflected in Yellowbird’s “nice” website. Lots of words, lots of product flotsam, little strategy.
What gets people ordering hot sauce online or out of their chairs and to a retailer is strategy. Strategy with a poetic, memorable, replicable flair.
Yellowbird has a good first step (name, package, website) but it hasn’t begun yet to do the real work of brandcraft.
Peace.
