Senior Director; Brand, Integrated Marketing

Description **Senior Brand Director, Integrated Marketing** **Reports to:** VP, Brand Marketing **Function:** Brand Marketing **Location:** Oak Creek, WI / Hybrid **THE ROLE** Stella & Chewy’s is entering its next chapter of growth. As we expand our reach, enter new channels and introduce more pet parents to the power of raw-inspired nutrition, we need to build demand differently. The consumer does not experience “brand media,” “shopper,” “retail media,” “social,” “commerce” and “PR” as separate disciplines and neither should we. The **Senior Brand Director, Integrated Media** will be responsible for turning Stella & Chewy’s brand and business strategy into **one connected, full-funnel demand plan** that builds the brand, recruits new households and accelerates conversion wherever consumers choose to shop. This leader will sit at the intersection of **brand building and commercial growth**, connecting paid media, retail media, shopper marketing, social, creators, commerce, communications and experiential activation around a common consumer journey and a common set of business outcomes. This is a senior brand leadership role for someone who understands that the best modern marketing does not choose between **brand and performance**—it deliberately builds both. **WHAT YOU WILL OWN** **1. Build the Integrated Demand Strategy** Translate our annual Brand Plan, growth priorities and commercial calendar into a single integrated communications and demand-generation strategy. You will: * Create the annual and rolling integrated media plan across paid, owned, earned, shopper, retail media, commerce, creator and experiential touchpoints. * Establish the role of each channel across the consumer journey. From mental availability and consideration through trial, conversion, repeat and advocacy. * Connect national brand-building investment with retailer and market-specific activation so consumers experience **one Stella & Chewy’s brand**, regardless of where they encounter us. * Lead an integrated planning rhythm built around **one plan, one brief, one calendar, one measurement agenda and one in-year optimization rhythm**. * Ensure media strategy starts with a consumer and business problem. **2. Own Media Strategy & Investment** Act as the senior business owner of Stella & Chewy’s media investment and ensure every dollar has a clear strategic role. You will: * Lead development of the total media architecture, investment strategy and channel mix. * Determine how investment should balance brand building, household penetration, trial, conversion, retention and retailer-specific growth. * Own paid media strategy across major platforms and partners, including social, video, streaming, programmatic, search and emerging channels. * Integrate retailer media networks including: Walmart Connect, Amazon, Roundel and other strategic partners into the broader brand plan rather than treating them as isolated performance programs. * Establish clear investment guardrails and principles for national, regional, retailer and innovation support. * Partner with Finance and Sales to continuously improve the productivity of working and non-working marketing dollars. * Lead annual media agency scopes, negotiations and performance management. **3. Create One Consumer Journey Across Brand + Commerce** Break down the traditional divide between “brand marketing” and “shopper marketing.” You will: * Map the consumer journey from first exposure through shelf, PDP, cart and repeat purchase. * Ensure campaign ideas are designed from inception to travel effectively across national media, social, retailer media, digital shelf and physical retail. * Partner with Shopper & Customer Marketing to connect national campaigns to retailer-specific programming, retail theater, sampling and conversion. * Partner with eCommerce and retailer teams to ensure media, digital shelf, search and PDP experiences work together. * Identify the highest-value moments where brand investment and commerce investment should intersect. * Build scalable activation systems that can flex by retailer without creating fragmented brand experiences. **4. Lead the Integrated Briefing Process** Create the connective tissue between strategy, creative and execution. You will: * Translate business objectives and consumer insight into clear, inspiring integrated briefs. * Bring Brand, Creative, Communications, Shopper, Sales and agency partners together around a single consumer objective and behavior change. * Define the job-to-be-done for every major marketing initiative before channels and tactics are selected. * Partner with Creative leadership to ensure ideas are developed for the way consumers actually consume media today—not retrofitted after the campaign is complete. * Establish clear message hierarchy and asset architecture so creative can scale effectively across channels, audiences and retailers. * Raise the standard of briefs, media plans and agency thinking across the organization. **5. Build a Modern Measurement & Learning System** Move the organization beyond channel-by-channel reporting and last-click ROAS. You will: * Establish the integrated marketing measurement framework and learning agenda. * Define KPIs by the role each investment plays across the funnel. * Measure marketing against outcomes including household penetration, new-to-brand recruitment, awareness, consideration, trial, repeat, velocity, incremental revenue and profitable growth. * Build a disciplined approach to incrementality testing, geographic testing, brand lift, retail media measurement and experimentation. * Establish clear hypotheses before investment and codify learnings after execution. * Partner with Insights, Analytics, Finance and retailer partners to connect consumer behavior with commercial outcomes. * Lead regular executive-level media and marketing effectiveness reviews that answer three questions: What happened? Why did it happen? What are we going to do differently because of it? **6. Turn Retail Media Into a Strategic Growth Capability** Elevate retail media from a collection of customer requests into an enterprise growth capability. You will: * Establish a clear role for retail media within the broader media ecosystem. * Create investment principles that determine when retailer media should recruit new consumers, convert existing demand, support innovation or defend strategic shelf positions. * Partner with Sales and Shopper Marketing on Joint Business Planning and retailer-specific growth opportunities. * Build learning agendas across retailer platforms rather than evaluating each program in isolation. * Identify opportunities to connect retailer first-party audiences with broader consumer targeting and brand-building programs. * Ensure retail media investment drives incremental business and not simply attributed sales. **7. Lead Agencies & Build Organizational Capability** Be both a strong external agency leader and an internal teacher. You will: * Lead media agency strategy, scope, performance and ways of working. * Build productive senior relationships with major media, commerce and technology partners. * Challenge agencies to bring business ideas—not simply media plans. * Develop tools, frameworks and operating rhythms that make integrated marketing easier for the organization. * Educate cross-functional teams on modern media, retail media, consumer journeys and marketing effectiveness. * Create a culture of curiosity, experimentation and continuous improvement. **HOW THIS ROLE WORKS ACROSS THE ORGANIZATION** **Brand owns the destination.** Brand strategy, consumer positioning, portfolio priorities, communication strategy and the long-term equity we are building. **Creative owns how the brand comes to life.** Creative ideas, distinctive brand expression, content systems and asset development. **Communications owns the earned conversation.** Corporate and brand PR, reputation, issues management and external communications. **Shopper & Customer Marketing owns the retail experience.** Retailer activation, shopper programming, in-store experience, displays and customer-specific execution. **Sales owns the customer relationship and commercial plan.** **The Senior Brand Director, Integrated Media owns how these pieces work together to create demand.** The role creates the connective strategy across consumer touchpoints, investment, audiences, sequencing, activation and measurement. **WHAT SUCCESS LOOKS LIKE** Within the first 12–24 months, this leader will have helped Stella & Chewy’s: * Establish one integrated annual demand plan across brand, media, commerce and shopper. * Increase household penetration and new-to-brand recruitment. * Improve aided and unaided brand awareness. * Increase the percentage of marketing investment proven to be incremental. * Improve media efficiency while simultaneously strengthening brand health. * Increase retailer and SKU velocity in priority markets. * Improve repeat and cross-purchase among recruited households. * Build a repeatable learning system across Amazon, Walmart, Target, PetSmart, Petco, Chewy and other strategic partners. * Create dramatically better integration between national campaigns and retailer activation. * Shift organizational conversations from **“What was the ROAS?”** to **“Did this investment create incremental, profitable consumers and strengthen the brand?”** Requirements **THE EXPERIENCE WE ARE LOOKING FOR** We are looking for a **brand builder first and a media expert second.** The strongest candidates will likely bring: * 12+ years of progressive marketing leadership experience within consumer brands, ideally CPG, food, beverage, beauty, wellness, pet or another highly competitive consumer category. * Classical brand management training or equivalent experience developing consumer strategy, annual business plans and integrated marketing programs. * Deep experience