Established by Bill Foley in 1996, Foley Family Wines & Spirits (FFWS) is a portfolio of highly acclaimed wines and spirits from some of the world’s greatest estates. The company owns more than 25 wineries and distilleries, each with its distinct style, legacy, and approach to hospitality.
FFWS has expanded its portfolio significantly since its founding, now including such storied brands as Chalk Hill Estate Winery, Sebastiani, Roth, Banshee, Ferrari-Carano, Chateau St. Jean, and Lancaster in Sonoma County; Merus, Silverado, and Foley Johnson in Napa Valley; Lincourt, Firestone, and Foley Estates in Southern California; Chalone Vineyard in Monterey County; Four Graces and Acrobat in Oregon; and Three Rivers in Washington. Foley Family Wine & Spirits import wines include Lucien Albrecht in France, Nieto Senetiner in Argentina, and 14 wine brands spanning three of New Zealand’s most acclaimed winegrowing regions: Marlborough, Central Otago, and Martinborough. The growing global spirits portfolio includes Minden Mill Distilling, Charles Goodnight Texas Straight Bourbon Whiskey, New Zealand’s Lighthouse Gin, El Mexicano Tequila, The Loch Lomond Group in Scotland, Two Stacks Irish Whisky and Killowen.
Position Summary:
A Brand Manager at Foley Family Wines is responsible for managing the development and execution of the marketing strategy and tactics for an assigned portfolio of brands. The Brand Manager oversees the project management of strategies and tactics with a variety of departments, including Sales, Operations, Direct-to-Consumer and Wholesale teams.
The Brand Manager role will drive significant growth across the portfolio of “lifestyle” brands with large growth potential (Bar Dog, Rickshaw, Cosentino, Cherry Pie, Swanson) and our Central Coast brands (Firestone, Chalone, Foley Estates, and RLH). The “lifestyle” portfolio offers exciting growth potential via purpose-led brands such as Bar Dog partnering with petfinder.com to support pet adoption and Rickshaw partnering with Arbor Day Foundation to support environmental causes. The Central Coast portfolio offers exciting opportunities as FFWS grows Foley Estates, and we look to drive Firestone in the fast-growing Paso Robles Cabernet category.
We are looking for a dynamic, fast-paced brand manager who can both envision and execute quickly, all with the consumer at the forefront of their thinking.
Essential Duties & Responsibilities
- Brand Strategy and Brand Planning:
- Develops brand strategies and positioning for priority brands, including consumer-compelling point of difference
- Develops brand marketing plans with clearly defined activities, timing, and budgets that are applicable across PR, paid media, partnerships, events, and retail promotions.
- Gains buy-in from supervisor and senior leadership, including CMO, on brand strategy, marketing plans, and budgets
- Understands and can develop “purpose-led” brands (in alc-bev and beyond)
- Is deeply in touch with luxury social and cultural trends that can be relevant to the Central Coast wine category and Central Coast wine consumers
- Partners closely with DTC teams to create holistic brand plans that are relevant across wholesale sales and DTC (e-commerce, wine club, tasting room) channels
- Marketing Programs and Production:
- Manages execution of brand marketing plan including paid advertising & promotion, trade marketing programs, public relations and product development, including packaging. Ensures consistent messaging, imagery and quality standards.
- Maintains accountability for approved brand budgets, revenue, and gross margin.
- Assigns and manages creative work through external agencies/vendors.
- Interfaces with Production and Winemaking teams including, but not limited to, written technical product specs, liaison to agencies/vendors/production to lead and monitor quality and timelines, track shipments/depletions against vintage transitions as well as participation in packaging/production meetings
- Interfaces with import partners to ensure alignment with brand story and mutual business objectives
- Marketing Communication:
- Communicates monthly brand business status and programs to Management, including marketplace goals and accomplishments, promotional programs, inventory, merchandising status, and wine availability issues. Consistent contact with Sales to maintain accuracy and evaluation; ad-hoc reporting may be required. ▪ Works closely with Sales to execute the marketing plan and ensure that materials are available to drive results. ▪ Ensures that brand strategies are implemented within PR initiatives. Coordinates branded special events, winemaker appearances, wine submissions and story pitches as needed. ▪ Provides content for website and manages brands’ trade materials. ▪ Performs as an effective and eloquent ambassador for the brands at both trade and consumer events. Direct winery team travel commitments such as participation in events, trade shows, distributor presentations and blitzes in conjunction with the Sales team ▪ Stays up to date on the latest marketing trends and best practices
- Strategic Business Management:
- Develops and maintains strategic brand product architecture and leads product-related tasks via S&OP process to ensure supply continuity and maximize profitability
- Analysis:
- Works with Sales & Marketing Analytics team to analyze brand performance and competitive information using several forms of intelligence including internal (Targit) and external (e.g., Circana)
- Identifies opportunities by channel, market, consumer, product or other for brand consideration
- Works with Sales to identify issues/opportunities, promotional needs and implements necessary programs by channel
- Track and measure the results of marketing campaigns
Required Knowledge, Skills & Other Abilities
- Bachelor’s degree required. 4 years of premium wine brand marketing and/or luxury goods or beverage experience preferred, preference for experience with Central Coast brands that have both wholesale and DTC selling
- Significant experience in promotion, packaging and merchandising design/implementation
- Experience in brand strategy, marketing communications planning, and budget/P&L management
- Strong analytic, strategic and creative skills.
- Excellent presentation and communication skills.
- Ability to balance multiple priorities, meet deadlines and thrive in a demanding, constantly changing environment
- Attention to detail a must
- Creativity and creative problem solving, specially creating unique consumer-compelling activations based upon cultural trends
- Proactive in managing business and communicating to supervisor and management any obstacles/delays that create business risk to realization of brand plans, profitability, and budgets
- Self-motivated, team-oriented ethics and excellent interpersonal skills
- Some travel required
Company Core Values:
Teamwork – Be a Spirited Partner
Commitment – Crush Every Day
Quality – Good vs. Grape: It’s All in The Details
Integrity – It Takes a Community
Safety – Tend the Vines
Entrepreneurship – Love the Wine You’re With
Fun! - Smile! You Have Purple Teeth!
Foley Family Wines & Spirits provides equal employment opportunities (EEO) to all employees and applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, veteran status or any other characteristic protected under federal, state or local law.
This range is what we reasonably expect to pay for this role. The actual compensation offered will be based on several factors, including but not limited to, qualifications, skills, experience, education, internal equity, and alignment with market data.
