Retail Marketing Manager EMEA

Sports and craftsmanship have been crucial for New Balance running shoes since 1906, which combine innovation, style, and flair. As an international consumer brand, they rely on a sophisticated online and offline marketing strategy. The Retail Marketing Manager EMEA ensures high traffic and conversion, and manages a small team of retail marketing specialists, to enable  the company’s ambitious five-year expansion plan. 

About New Balance

New Balance lifts sports to a higher level, and encourages people to be driven by their passions. They ensure all of their employees feel respected and contribute their highest level of creativity. This empowering culture has resulted in significant success: the company reported a turnover of more than five billion dollars last year, achieving twenty-one percent growth over the previous year. 

New Balance also strives to make a positive impact on people and the planet. Its focus is on energy efficiency, choice of materials, product circularity and lifespan, and the origin of raw materials. For example, New Balance plans to switch to one hundred percent renewable energy in its production facilities by 2025.

For an international consumer brand, it’s crucial to develop a sophisticated marketing strategy that effectively combines offline and online campaigns. And their offline retail is an important channel to drive revenue and brand awareness. New Balance sells its products through partner retailers, and its own stores. They have a flagship store in London and are focusing on flagship store expansion in 2025. The Retail Marketing Manager EMEA will play a key role in ensuring retail marketing has a strategic position within New Balance’s EMEA marketing organization. 

Job description: Retail Marketing Manager EMEA

The Retail Marketing Manager will develop and implement marketing strategies to drive customer engagement, craft innovative campaigns and activations, improve profitability, and enhance brand visibility within the New Balance store environment across EMEA. They will report to the Senior Retail Brand Presentation Manager. 

“New Balance is a premium brand in the EMEA region. With an aggressive expansion plan over the next few years, the business is supporting a key focus on Retail, and the role our stores play in the New Balance brand identity. The Retail Marketing Manager EMEA oversees the Retail Marketing team of four FTEs, and anchors retail marketing as an important part of the organization’s strategic marketing activities.” – Shannon Fenton, Senior Retail Brand Presentation Manager of New Balance 

Team leadership

Excellent, flexible team leadership is crucial for this role’s success. The team of specialists and their assistants each offer their own backgrounds, strengths, and areas of expertise. The Retail Marketing Manager EMEA will guide individual team members, support their development and help them gain independence in their roles. Their deep expertise in retail marketing also helps them earn the trust of the Senior Retail Brand Presentation Manager in making strategic, tactical, and operational decisions.

Data-driven strategy

The Retail Marketing Manager will analyze sales data and customer insights to get to know the consumer, in order to optimize marketing strategies and improve campaign performance. They monitor and report on campaign effectiveness, providing insights and recommendations for improvement. They also leverage digital marketing initiatives for retail stores and deliver best practices in digital communication about the stores, including developing the retail CRM strategy. In addition, they will manage the EMEA Retail Marketing budget, and conduct market research to stay informed about consumer behavior, industry trends, competitive landscape, emerging technologies, and marketing best practices.

Traffic and brand loyalty

The Retail Marketing Manager EMEA will plan and implement integrated marketing campaigns that drive in-store traffic, conversion, and brand loyalty. They lead the execution of retail marketing activities for EMEA region product launches, to ensure effective roll-out with product, sales, and local marketing teams. This includes omnichannel marketing as well as connecting and building relationships with, for example, the e-commerce and local key account marketing teams.

Brand experience and consistency

This role supports the creation of marketing collateral, partnering with Visual Merchandising teams to ensure consistent and compelling brand presentations across all retail locations. They also ensure that retail marketing strategies align with Visual Merchandising guidelines. Finally, they collaborate with global and local retail teams, the EMEA Retail Operations Manager, and the New Balance Distributor Marketing Managers, to ensure brand consistency and enhance the overall customer experience while integrating local, regional nuances.

The Retail Marketing Manager EMEA 

To achieve success in their role, the Retail Marketing Manager EMEA has a background in leadership within international retail marketing in the EMEA region. They have strong situational management and coaching skills, and in-depth knowledge of retail markets, consumer trends, and behavior across EMEA — as well as proven experience creating and implementing winning retail campaigns.

They can manage several large-scale projects simultaneously and collaborate with cross-functional teams in a matrix organization. The Retail Marketing Manager also has an operational background, and expertise working with vendors, designers, and creatives. Although the Global head office is responsible for creative choices, a level of creative expertise will help this role hit the ground running in the brand-building parts of their position.

New Balance has just launched its five-year plan, with an aggressive focus on expansion, through new concepts and flagship stores. For an ambitious Retail Marketing Manager EMEA, this is the ideal time to join – in a versatile role that translates directly to the brand’s EMEA retail success. 

Interested?  

New Balance is working with Top of Minds to fill this vacancy.  To express your interest, please contact Noor Buttinger at noor.buttinger@topofminds.com .