Job Description
Aardman is an employee owned, independent and multi-Academy Award® and BAFTA® award winning studio. Its work spans feature films, series, commercials, games and interactive entertainment. Aardman’s brands are global in appeal, novel, entertaining, brilliantly characterised, and full of charm reflecting the unique talent, energy, and personal commitment of the Aardman team. The studio’s work is often imitated, and yet the company continues to lead the field producing a rare brand of visually stunning content for cinema, broadcasters, digital platforms, and live experiences around the world.
We are proud to be retained partners to Aardman to manage their new Director of Marketing search.
Reporting to the Executive Commercial & Brand Director, this role will be responsible for the strategic direction of all Aardman’s brands: creating and implementing brand strategies and plans which define measurable expectations/objectives to ensure optimum sales and exploitation, whilst firming up and safeguarding long term brand equity.
Responsible for leading and inspiring the marketing team, this role will ensure the Executive Board and other key brand stake holders have a common vision for all Aardman’s brands in every form of content development and exploitation.
The postholder will have oversight of global brand strategy plans for each intellectual property across all media – from development to launch, working closely with all stakeholders from development, production, sales & distribution, launch and exploitation.
This role will nurture external distributor relationships at a senior level and ensuring Aardman maximises their partnership with them as well as extracting the maximum marketing value, impact and attention on all their brands.
The Director of Marketing will work closely with the Senior sales and marketing team and all stakeholders to ensure the brand and marketing strategies dovetail with the overall commercial development and potential of the Aardman portfolio. In addition, this role will oversee the setting of annual brand timelines and objectives, ensuring a clear brand and positioning identity across pitch materials and style guides. This includes presenting to the Executive Board.
For this role, we are seeking a significant and seasoned brand and marketing executive with proven experience at a senior managerial level, a solid foundation in classic branding principles, with a consumer orientation, and used to working across a wide range of geographical regions.
You must bring experience of managing P&Ls within a strong strategic planning environment, in the entertainment business whether within a media agency, FMCG/consumer products, or publishing. You will have managed branding programs for a portfolio of classic, high-quality brands that resonate with consumers.
We are seeking an individual who is highly responsive, passionate, and creative with strong convictions about branding, positioning and working in a team to increase revenue and business performance.
For further details and to apply, please contact Vanessa Moon or Simon Quinn for a briefing pack via recruit@moonexecsearch.com quoting reference MC2514
Closing date: 23:59 on Friday 29th November
NB: All direct applications will be forwarded to Moon Executive Search for consideration and both Aardman Animations and Moon Executive Search are equal opportunity employers and welcome Expressions of Interest from all areas of society.
You can read more about Aardman’s fascinating history at www.aardman.com/about/history/
Our Diversity & Inclusion Charter is our commitment to building a workforce that is truly reflective of society, underpinned by the belief that a diverse and inclusive workforce is essential in delivering on our mission: to create entertainment for all and to be the most inspirational animation company in the world. We welcome applications from all individuals and are always happy to discuss flexible working needs. Aardman is proud to be both a Disability Confident Employer and a Living Wage Employer
Aardman become Employee Owned in November 2018. Before this, Aardman was “owned” by its two founders, Peter Lord and David Sproxton who had begun working professionally under the Aardman name in 1976. When the partnership became a limited company, Peter and David held all the shares.