Senior Brand Manager

Company Description

 

Who We Are

As a 55-year-old family-owned company, we have a long-term and purpose-filled vision.

Unclaimed Baggage is the only company in the United States that buys and sells the lost luggage of airlines that is never reunited with its owners. Our 50,000-square-foot retail store in Scottsboro, Alabama is a one-of-a-kind destination experience, complemented by a fast-growing online store, which together have created an iconic omni-channel brand that draws people in with a sense of discovery.

As one of the largest tourist destinations in the state of Alabama, Unclaimed Baggage attracts close to one million visitors each year from all 50 states and over 40 foreign countries and has been featured by a number of major media outlets, including National Geographic, Good Morning America, Vogue, and The New York Times.
 

Our Culture

Our Purpose is to “Redeem the lost, unclaimed, and rejected for the glory of God.” As a lost luggage business, this is clearly manifest in how we repurpose forgotten items that would otherwise end up in landfills, but we also strive to redeem people and communities through our Reclaimed for Good foundation, providing suitcases, clothing, medical supplies, and eyeglasses to those who need them all around the world. This purpose is core to who we are and has guided our decisions for over 55 years.

We believe that values aren’t just words on a piece of paper, but something that drives our behavior every day, which is why we call them Values in Action. They are:

Integrity: Do the right thing.
Excellence: Always reach for better.
Humility: Listen and learn.
Service: Help others win.
Teamwork: Grow stronger together.
Gratitude: Choose to be thankful.
Entrepreneurship: Make it happen.

We offer a casual yet professional work environment, flexibility, great benefits, competitive pay, and a close-knit team who cares. We are all about people and seek to foster a culture of collaboration, support, and growth.

 

Job Description

The Senior Brand Manager is the person who turns brand strategy into campaigns that guests notice, talk about, and travel for. You will lead four to six tentpole campaigns a year from brief to launch to read-out, and you will be a lead voice in shaping the brand plan those campaigns deliver against.

Brand marketing is a muscle we are still building here, and this role is central to building it. We have one of the most naturally beloved and press-magnetic brands in American retail, along with an enormous opportunity to tell that story more deliberately and more often. You will work across creative, social, digital, e-commerce, public relations, out-of-home, partnerships, influencers, and the in-store experience to bring campaigns to life, leading through influence and bringing partners across the business with you.

We are looking for someone with a real brand marketing foundation, the kind built inside a consumer business where the brand itself is the asset, or at a brand-led agency serving those businesses. This role operates across our Scottsboro campus and our Atlanta-based marketing team, and you will spend meaningful time on the ground in Scottsboro, where the destination, the store, and the guest experience actually live. As you establish yourself, the scope grows to include destination and tourism partnerships, a college ambassador program, and out-of-home and local media buying.

How You’ll Drive Our Strategy

Our 5-year vision is to create “a destination experience so compelling, you can’t wait to share it”: an iconic destination brand delivering elevated retail, online, and hospitality experiences that inspire pride, connection, and storytelling. Five strategic imperatives get us there. This role sits at the center of two of them.

• Building a World-Class Brand Experience: Grow our fanatical fanbase locally and nationally through regional awareness campaigns with a strong Huntsville focus, brand tentpoles, and storytelling that makes our brand rival top consumer brands.

• Creating a Multi-Day Campus Destination: Build the awareness, tourism partnerships, and destination marketing programs that turn Scottsboro into a place guests travel for and stay overnight to explore, supporting the campus master plan and the broader revitalization of downtown Scottsboro.

Key Responsibilities

• Campaign Leadership, End to End: Lead four to six tentpole campaigns a year from start to finish. Set the objective and success criteria, write the brief, build the plan and the budget, orchestrate the cross-functional team through execution, and run the post-campaign read-out. Your team carries much of the event production and on-site logistics, and you own the brief, the plan, and the result. This is the core of the role.

• Brand Planning: Serve as a lead voice in building our annual brand strategy, brand plan, and marketing calendar alongside our marketing leadership, then turn that plan into the campaigns that deliver it.

• Creative Briefing & Partnership: Write briefs sharp enough for a creative team to solve, then partner closely with our Creative Director and her team through concepting and production to keep the work on strategy and on brand.

• Regional Awareness & the Huntsville Market: Own the awareness plan for our priority regional markets, Huntsville first. Identify and recommend the strongest out-of-home and local media placements for your campaigns, and build the community presence, sponsorships, and grassroots programs that go with them. Get immersed in Huntsville and build the relationships that come with that.

• Public Relations Support: Build earned media into your campaigns, working as the day-to-day campaign partner to our PR agency and to your PR & Communications Specialist, who supports coordination, press mailings, and on-site media visits.

• Partnerships & Activations: Lead brand partnerships, pop-ups, and activations that extend our reach into new audiences, and brief influencer work into your campaigns.

• Cross-Functional Partnership: Work hand in hand with our social, digital and e-commerce, and experiential design teams so that campaigns land consistently everywhere a guest meets the brand. You will bring the brand lens to their work and they will bring channel expertise to yours.

• Team Leadership: Lead and develop our PR & Communications Specialist and our Project Coordinator, two talented teammates based in Scottsboro who are growing quickly. Investing in them is a core part of this job, and over time they will take on more across events, media operations, measurement, and press coordination.

• Presence in Scottsboro: Spend regular time on the ground in Scottsboro as a working partner to Retail, Operations, and our local marketing team on campaign and event execution.

• Measurement & Reporting: Define success criteria before a campaign launches, track regional awareness, traffic, and engagement against them, and use what you learn to sharpen the next one. Train the broader team to run this over time.

• Budget Stewardship: Build and manage campaign budgets, prioritizing spend toward the highest-impact awareness, traffic, and engagement opportunities.

Team Structure

• Reports To: Sr. Director of Omni-Channel Marketing & E-Commerce

• Direct Reports: PR & Communications Specialist; Project Coordinator

• Key Partners: SVP of Commercial Strategy, Creative Director, Director of Experiential Design, Social Media Specialist, E-Commerce Marketing team, our PR agency, and Retail leadership

What Success Looks Like

• Four to six tentpole campaigns a year that launch on time, on brief, and with measurable results against criteria set before launch.
• A stronger annual brand plan that you helped shape, and campaigns that visibly deliver against it.
• Continued growth in regional brand awareness, particularly in the Huntsville market.
• Growth in both local and destination guest traffic to the Scottsboro store.
• Deeper guest engagement across events, activations, social, and campaigns.
• Two direct reports who are visibly growing in capability and confidence.

 

Qualifications

• 5 to 8 years of brand marketing experience, built inside a consumer business where the brand is a core asset, such as consumer products, retail, restaurant, hospitality, entertainment, or destination, or at a brand-led agency serving those categories
• A track record leading several full-cycle brand campaigns, from strategy and brief through cross-functional execution and measurement. You have run this process enough times to be comfortable with it
• Strong ability to lead through influence: getting excellent work out of creative, social, digital, PR, and retail partners who do not report to you
• Excellent creative briefing and written communication skills. You can define a problem sharply enough that a creative team can solve it
• Experience partnering with creative teams, with a clear eye for whether work is on strategy and on brand
• Experience planning out-of-home and local media, with a clear point of view on placement and reach in a regional market
• Experience working with a PR, media, or creative agency as a day-to-day partner
• Analytical comfort. You set success criteria before you launch, read the results honestly, and adjust
• Strong project management instincts and the ability to run several campaigns at once without dropping the details
• A self-starter who brings their own direction and is energized by building something rather than inheriting it
• Preferred: destination, tourism, experiential, or retail marketing experience
• Preferred: people leadership experience
• Preferred: existing ties to the Huntsville or North Alabama market
• Bachelor’s degree in marketing, communications, or a related field
• Based in Scottsboro, AL or Atlanta, GA, with regular time on site in Scottsboro

 

Additional Information

Why Join Us

• Be part of an iconic brand with a rich history, an entrepreneurial culture, and a powerful purpose.
• Shape brand marketing for a company with enormous brand equity and a story people already love to tell.
• Directly shape two of the company’s five strategic imperatives: Building a World-Class Brand Experience and Creating a Multi-Day Campus Destination.
• Work in a dynamic, close-knit, and mission-driven environment.
• Competitive salary and benefits package.
   

Unclaimed Baggage provides equal employment opportunities (EEO) to all employees and applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, citizenship status, age, disability, or any other category protected under applicable law. This policy applies to all terms and conditions of employment, including, but not limited to, hiring, placement, promotion, termination, layoff, recall, transfer, leaves of absence, compensation, and training.

This job posting is being managed by Forrest Johnson Recruiting on behalf of Unclaimed Baggage.