Manager, Sports Marketing Brand Strategy - A&F

Company Description

Job Description 

At Abercrombie, we are the go-to apparel destination for outfitting all of our customers’ lifestyle needs. The Marketing team has the essential responsibility of connecting our customers with our dynamic and ever-evolving brands. Our campaigns span through in-store, digital, social, event marketing, and PR channels to bring our brand vision to life. This diverse and collaborative team of creative, strategic, and curious individuals are constantly looking for new ways to learn about our consumer and find the best channels to reach them with our product stories.   

The Manager, Sports Marketing Brand Strategy - A&F is responsible for leading the strategy, planning and execution of our sports partnerships and initiatives. This role plays a pivotal part in shaping our brand presence through high-impact collaborations with athletes, teams, leagues, and sports organizations. This role will deliver brand campaign strategies that connect with the customer, while balancing product priorities, brand storytelling and sales objectives into customer-facing campaigns, and delivering upon our brand purpose to create consumer trust, loyalty and brand love.

This job is located at our Global Home Office in Columbus, Ohio.  

What Will You Be Doing? 

• Responsible for developing the year-long, seasonal, and weekly sports marketing calendar, leading work sessions with creative partners, and presenting plans to cross-functional teams and leadership. 
• Lead the day-to-day development and execution of all sports marketing partnerships, including athlete, league, and event collaborations. 
• Build and maintain strong relationships with internal and external peers and partners to align partnership goals and maximize impact. 
• Manage end-to-end activation plans for sports partnerships—briefing, creative development, timelines, budget oversight, execution and performance tracking. 
• Collaborate with internal Talent, PR, Social, and Creative teams to bring sports partnerships to life across all channels. 
• Collaborate with internal Brand Strategy team to ensure sport marketing plans fit into the overarching Brand narrative and campaign plans. 
• Collaborate with external agency partners in strategy and execution of campaigns and events. 
• Connect with regional marketing leads to ensure they have the tools and plans necessary to adapt to their markets and incorporate regional needs into planning processes.
• Track the success of regional marketing efforts within key markets to ensure global implementation of key learnings. 
• Oversee one direct report (Events Specialist), ensuring flawless execution of all sports-related events and appearances. 
• Monitor and analyze performance, ensure KPIs are met/exceeded, and provide insights and recommendations for future initiatives. 
• Stay ahead of industry trends, identifying new opportunities and partners that align with brand objectives. 
• Understands and constantly re-evaluates the customer mindset and regional brand needs to solidify brand relevancy and build effective campaigns that put customers at the center. 
• Deeply understands brand and merchant priorities, and can translate those into business-driven, customer-centric marketing campaigns. 
• Works to develop new and unique ways to authentically get in front of core demographic. 
• Responsible for engaging in and leading brand partnership conversations as appropriate. 
• Continually evaluates processes and ways to find efficiency. 
• Key performance measurements: delivers positive brand health measures, creates global marketing alignment, can pull actionable insights out of research and information, showcases strong cross-functional partnership, has presence and can command a room, has strong presentation skills, is a champion for the greater team and brand. 
• Key partners: Marketing Channel Strategists, Marketing Operations, Marketing Creative, Merchandising, Data & Analytics, Research & Insights, Global Promotions, Visual Merchandising, Legal, Corporate Philanthropy, Diversity and Inclusion, Corporate Communications.

What Do You Need To Bring? 

• Bachelor’s degree in Marketing, Communications, Sports Management, or a related field, or related experience.
• 7+ years of experience in Marketing Brand Strategy.
• Proven experience managing sports partnerships and working with talent/athlete representation. 
• A passion for sports and a deep understanding of the sports media landscape. 
• Strong project management skills with the ability to juggle multiple high-profile campaigns simultaneously. 
• Strong inter-departmental coordination skills.
• High attention to detail, organization, and time management.
• Experience in