Overview
Brand Manager- Away From Home Jobs in Greater Chicago Area at ForceBrands
Position Title: Brand Manager
Reports To: CMO
Direct Reports: Marketing Manager
Location & Travel: Remote; must be able to travel up to 25% of the time to Milwaukee (one day per week) and in-market locations to collaborate with Away from Home sales, marketing, and cross-functional teams.
Compensation Range: $120,000 – $140,000 annual salary
About the Role
Our Away From Home (AFH) channel is where the brand's story comes to life — across
thousands of cafés, restaurants, hotels, and workplaces that share our passion for quality,
sustainability, creativity and a premium lifestyle. It’s the largest and most influential part of
our business, and where the brand presence continues to grow and inspire.
The Brand Manager, Away From Home will play a pivotal role in shaping how the brand“shows
up” in the world outside the home – connecting our brand vision to the foodservice and
hospitality community and the millions of consumers who enjoy our tea at those locations
each year. This is a strategic, creative, and deeply collaborative role that bridges marketing
to the consumer and partnership with the end user operator – driving awareness, trial and loyalty by elevating experiences, and ensuring the brand remains the premium tea brand of
choice for tastemakers everywhere.
Position Overview
The Brand Manager, Away From Home (AFH) is responsible for developing and executing
marketing strategies that drive awareness, trial, loyalty, and brand equity growth for the company across foodservice and hospitality channels—and with the consumers who experience
the brand in those spaces. This role not only builds demand and loyalty with operators but
also plays a critical part in driving consumer trial, education, and brand pull-through by
ensuring the brand shows up with a premium, consistent presence wherever people drink the brand.
This role activates the brand across cafés, restaurants, hotels, offices and other Away From
Home environments, bringing the company's premium positioning to life at every touchpoint—from operator-facing toolkits to consumer-facing signage, menus, experiences, and sampling.
By elevating both operator adoption and consumer engagement, the Brand Manager, AFH
helps fuel overall brand growth and strengthens the bridge between out-of-home and retail
& eCommerce channels.
Essential Duties & Responsibilities
• Lead and execute the comprehensive AFH channel marketing strategy; translate
marketing strategies into a marketing plan that drives AFH channel profitable
growth, customer loyalty, and consumer awareness, trial and loyalty.
• Serve as the critical partner between Marketing & the brand's AFH Sales team to
ensure marketing strategies are generated, planned, and executed with excellence.
• Lead the brand's AFH consumer & operator insights research & analytics; this spans
consumer & operator insights, market trends, and competitive dynamics to create
data-driven analysis & insights to drive channel growth opportunities and inform
distributor & partner business reviews.
• Drive brand activations with top-tier AFH partners in target markets and through rich
on-site branding, merchandising, and experiential activation.
• Strategize, create, and execute brand partnerships, paid collaborations, and
influencer programs to drive consumer & operator awareness.
• Develop & lead the commercialization of an AFH channel innovation strategy;
leverage consumer, operator, and competitive insights to drive innovation agenda,
collaborate with cross-functional team to commercialize innovation, and develop
go-to-market launch strategy.
• Partner with sales team, procurement, and marketing to develop a best-in-class
premium teaware & accessory program to activate the brand at key accounts
• Lead the brand's AFH PR, communications, & content strategy spanning email
newsletters, sales collateral, recipes, organic social (LinkedIn, Instagram), product
sheets, and more to engage with AFH operators to drive channel sales, loyalty, and
brand goals.
• Develop the brand's wholesale website marketing strategy to turn a new sales tool into a
broader, more powerful Marketing tool for the AFH channel with the goal of
expanding AOV, incremental category adoption, and innovation sell-in.
• Develop and own KPIs to measure brand, demand, and activation performance;
manage and track budget spend against plan and deliver clear, data-driven insights
& analyses to evaluate effectiveness and optimize future investments.
• Expertly collaborate within the brand's Marketing team, across its cross-functional team,
and external agency partners to drive alignment and execution.
• Ensure that the brand standards, voice, and storytelling are executed
consistently & with excellence in the AFH channel.
• Up to 25% travel to Milwaukee and Tier 1 markets to engage with AFH sales team &
customers, support & attend expositions, and understand local markets
Requirements
• Bachelor’s degree in Marketing or related field.
• 8–10 years of brand marketing experience with at least two years of specific
experience marketing towards the AFH channel (e.g., hospitality, café operators,
foodservice, etc.) within the premium food & beverage industry.
• Proven ability to develop and execute end-to-end AFH channel marketing strategies,
from planning through activation.
• Expertise activating a brand with operator partners in AFH settings
• Demonstrated success partnering closely with sales teams and serving as the
connective link between sales, marketing, and customers.
• Experience deploying & managing a $500,000 to $1,000,000 marketing activation
budget
• Strong cross-functional leadership ability to bring varied teams such as Operations,
Finance, R&D, etc. together.
• Hands-on experience executing brand activations, on-site merchandising, and
experiential marketing in AFH environments.
• Ability to strategize, identify, and execute brand partnerships, collaborations, and
influencer programs (e.g., chefs, mixologists, hospitality partners).
• Experience contributing to or leading innovation and go-to-market launch planning
within a brand or product portfolio.
• Strong experience leading consumer, operator, market, and competitive insights
initiatives and translating data into actionable strategies.
• Strong strategic thinking, communication, analytical, and organizational skills.
• Exceptional project management skills, with the ability to manage multiple
workstreams, timelines, and cross-functional stakeholders.
• Passion for tea and learning about tea.
Title: Brand Manager- Away From Home
Company: ForceBrands
Location: Greater Chicago Area
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