Director, Marketing - The Pink Stuff

Job Title:          Director, Marketing - The Pink Stuff 

Location:          Vernon Hills, IL     

Department:    Star Brands Marketing 

Reports To:       Senior Marketing Director - The Pink Stuff

The Pink Stuff is one of the world’s most recognized cleaning brands, celebrated for its viral social presence and fast‑growing global footprint. With millions of organic social views and a highly engaged global following, we continue to redefine how consumers discover and fall in love with cleaning products.

We are seeking a proven brand builder and strategic marketer with deep experience growing brands, leading digital-first marketing, and translating consumer and social insights into commercial growth. The ideal candidate brings a strong branding foundation, demonstrable success in social and digital marketing, and a track record of developing and launching winning product innovation.

This role reports to the Sr. Director of Marketing, The Pink Stuff

Role Summary

The Director, Marketing – The Pink Stuff leads brand strategy, digital marketing, innovation, and portfolio management for The Pink Stuff. This role requires a strong brand strategist with hands-on experience building brands, shaping compelling positioning, developing breakthrough innovation, and leading marketing programs across social, digital, retail, and ecommerce channels. The successful candidate combines creativity with commercial rigor and uses insights, analytics, and performance data to scale brand equity and drive profitable growth.

Key Responsibilities:

1. Consumer, Category & Market Expertise

• Lead the development of a robust consumer learning agenda grounded in category dynamics, macro trends, and competitive intelligence, translating insights into clear strategic actions.

• Partner with Consumer Insights, Digital/Ecomm team and Category Management to identify whitespace opportunities and growth levers.

2. Brand Strategy & Marketing Activation

• Lead the development of annual brand strategies and integrated marketing plans that strengthen brand equity, increase household penetration, and accelerate growth across channels.

• Own a digital-first go-to-market approach, partnering closely with Ecommerce, Global, and Demand Generation teams to translate brand strategy into best-in-class execution across paid, owned, and earned channels.

• Lead the development of social and digital campaigns that drive awareness, engagement, conversion, and advocacy, with strong oversight of content strategy, influencer partnerships, performance media, and ecommerce activation.

• Collaborate with Sales to align brand strategy with customer plans, retailer media, and omni-channel activation. 

• Prepare and present best in class sales decks leveraging insightful brand story telling.

3. Product Portfolio and Innovation Leadership

• Lead end-to-end brand portfolio and innovation management, including whitespace identification, concept development, claims strategy, SKU optimization, pricing, forecasting, and stage-gate execution.

• Build robust business cases: market sizing, margin analysis, forecast modeling, and 1–3 year growth plans.

• Partner cross-functionally with R&D, Operations, Sales, Supply Chain, and Finance to bring innovation concepts to market, ensuring strong consumer relevance, commercial viability, and flawless execution.

• Conduct regular product line evaluations to strengthen margin, and velocity.

4. Commercial & P&L Management

• Oversee brand P&L to drive profitable, sustainable growth.
• Manage brand budget and ensure strong ROI across marketing investments.
• Partner with cross functional team to forecast sales, margin, and promotional needs.

5. Cross-Functional Leadership

• Act as the hub for project teams, driving alignment, timelines, and decision-making.
• Influence Sales, R&D, Operations, Supply Chain, and Executive Leadership.
• Present strategies, updates, and recommendations with clear storytelling and executive presence to internal and external audiences.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Business, Marketing, Engineering, or related field; MBA preferred.

• 10+ years of progressive brand management experience, preferably within CPG or a fast-paced growth brand, with a strong track record of building and scaling brands.

• Demonstrated expertise in social and digital marketing, including brand content strategy, influencer marketing, performance media, ecommerce activation, and using digital analytics to optimize investment and impact.

• Proven ability to translate data, consumer insights, and market trends into brand strategy, innovation pipelines, and actionable growth plans.

• Demonstrated experience managing budgets, forecasts, and P&L components.
• Exceptional communication, cross-functional leadership, and storytelling skills.
• Bias for action, creative problem solving, and a "hands-on" entrepreneurial mindset.

• Demonstrable experience developing and commercializing product innovation, from consumer need identification and concept development through launch execution and post-launch optimization.

• Empathy and good listening skills to understand audience and consumer needs.
• Ability to adapt to change and anticipate future needs.
• Can-do attitude and the desire to go above and beyond.

• Demonstrated potential to grow into a director-level role within the next 12 months, with the leadership capability and ambition to help build a strong team.

Salary Target Range: $140,000 - $165,000, bonus eligible 

From big benefits to small, we take care of our associates!  After 30 days of employment, you will be eligible for a benefits package that includes medical, dental, life, disability and business travel insurance, flexible spending accounts, EAP, stock purchases and vacation/sick days/parental leave. We also offer a 401(k) plan after three months of employment. Associates are vested in the RPM Pension plan after completing five years of service.  Rust-Oleum offers 9 paid holidays and one floating holiday per year.  You are also eligible to earn three weeks of vacation on an annualized basis.

Rust-Oleum/Star Brands is an equal opportunity employer. Employment selection and related decisions are made without regard to sex, race, age, disability, religion, national origin, color, or any other protected class.