Marketing Manager Sun

GrandVision is a name well-chosen. With 34 market-leading eye care (r)etail banners around the world, their mission is to help more and more people around the world realize their full potential in life by helping them see better. So far, the emphasis has been on prescription eyewear. Sunglasses have been identified as a major growth category. In order to unlock the full potential of that market, GrandVision is hiring a new Marketing Manager Sun.

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“Eyecare, we care more”

GrandVision is a global leader in eyewear with various retail companies, brands and formats including Pearle and Eye Wish in the Netherlands, Apollo in Germany and Vision Express in the UK, Ireland, Poland, Hungary, the Middle East and India. The most international banner is Solaris, the global category manager for sunglasses within the group. GrandVision’s 6,500 shops and e-commerce platforms offer eyecare products in the categories sunglasses, prescription glasses, contact lenses and/or accessories. The way of working is defined by a combination of a top notch centralized support center (based in Schiphol) and an efficient way to roll out optimizations and innovations across different geographies and (r)etail brands. And each new hire will help optimize processes further. GrandVision B.V. is owned in majority by HAL Holding N.V., who first started investing in the company in 1996. The HAL strategy is focused on the long-term objective of increasing shareholder value, which forms a strong and stable foundation for GrandVision.

Solaris

With a strict focus on sunglasses, Solaris is the most international banner within the group. Solaris has its own retail network with more than 2,800 points of sales across 25 countries. There are about 200 standalone Solaris stores, but most of the sales come from shop-in-shops in other GrandVision’s stores. The current turnover of Solaris (off- and online combined) is a significant double-digit share of the Total GrandVision sales. The ambition is to leverage the franchise model in order to drive expansion and reach full global coverage. GrandVision is also looking into other business development opportunities for the Solaris brand, including airport retail and department stores. The Center of Excellence (CoE) Sun provides the operating companies with end-to-end category management for sunglasses and a marketing framework which can be adapted to local requirements so that each organization can gain a competitive advantage in their respective markets. The department consists of 15 FTE. Read more about working at GrandVision.

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“I see bright opportunities for fast growth in the sunglasses category. It is rapidly expanding its sun retail concept in more than 25 countries and is one of the growth engines of GrandVision. We have what it takes to become the largest retailer in sunglasses worldwide. That’s one of the reasons why I’m on the look-out for a top notch Marketing Manager.” – Thibault de Bodman, CoE Sun Director

About the vacancy

There is an untapped potential to grow the Solaris brand in all geographic regions, both within and outside of existing GrandVision stores. It’s a strategic priority of GrandVision to transform Solaris into the largest sunglasses retailer in the world. Marketing Manager Sun is a key position in the realization of this ambition, responsible for the brand platform and further development of all touchpoints of the retail format (instore and online). There are four central themes to the role:

1. Retail & Marketing Strategy – Together with the CoE Sun Director and the Regional Director Sun for each region, the Marketing Manager will continuously develop and optimize the marketing strategy. The goal: raising global awareness, brand recognition, brand affinity and customer retention. The Marketing Manager will liaise with the Business Development team to make sure the marketing strategy is perfectly aligned with the business development plans, thus supporting the setup and operations of the expansion.
2. Team Management – The Marketing Manager is in charge of a small but growing team of marketers. Based on the defined strategy, the marketers deliver a marketing framework consisting of a global commercial policy, several anti-crisis promotions and numerous campaign mechanisms such as Sale, Easter, Mother’s Day, Black Friday and Christmas. As the main interface with suppliers such as the creative agency, execution agency, photographers and motion designers, the Marketing Manager will own the CoE Sun budget and ensure proper follow-up with CoE Sun Director and Group Finance team.
3. International Leadership – True leadership is about influence rather than hierarchy. The operating companies can use the toolkit to build their own marketing calendar in line with the local circumstances. By working closely with the operating companies, the Marketing Manager ensures the strategy is embraced and implemented with rigor in every store, for every customer and every day. A certain level of seniority and international experience is required in order to achieve this sort of impact.
4. Supporting e-commerce –  GrandVision is investing in its online transformation with digital capabilities. Especially for the global Solaris brand, this is a key priority. The Marketing Manager will create a digital strategy focusing on digital content, CRM and social media. He/she will inspire the team to develop all materials from a 360° perspective and define and activate the go-to-market-plan. Leading global market research, collecting data, analyzing results and optimizing plans based on user insights will be a key part of the e-commerce practice. Digital experience is an advantage for this role.

GrandVision is a very result-driven organization. The performance of the Marketing Manager will primarily be measured against the delivery of the global Solaris P&L versus plan, the deliverables, budget management and the quality of support provided to the operating companies. In order to hit the ground running, candidates will need to be retail-smart and have the resilience and people skills to influence stakeholders at all levels and drive change in an agile environment.

Experience

• Retail brand building
• Strong manager & influencer
• International environment
• Omnichannel campaigns & analytics

Personality

• Professional resilience
• Strong focus on delivering results
• Natural leadership and influencer skills
• Able to quickly build solid relationships
• Agile, hands-on mentality