Brand Activation Manager

• Brief, direct and manage agencies, production partners, rights holders and suppliers, ensuring creative quality, operational readiness and value for investment.
• Working with the Brand Experience Lead, manage brand governance across activations, reviewing and approving concepts, visual identity, messaging, environmental branding, partner applications and customer journeys.
• Manage the branded merchandise programme and global catalogue, ensuring the range is purposeful, on-brand, high quality, sustainable where possible and commercially well managed.
• Establish and enforce governance for bespoke merchandise orders, including briefing requirements, design approval, supplier standards, brand compliance and demand management.
• Develop scalable toolkits, templates, playbooks and workflows that enable teams and agencies to deliver activations and merchandise consistently and efficiently.
• Use audience insight, stakeholder feedback, operational learning and performance data to improve future activations, sponsorships and merchandise decisions; continuously build and apply AI capabilities to enhance role efficiency and scalable delivery.

Key interfaces

• Broader Communications and Marketing teams, including Events, Content, Design and Product Marketing
• Business segments and market teams
• Procurement and Finance
• Legal, Compliance and Sustainability teams
• Event organisers, sponsorship rights holders and strategic partners
• Creative, production, merchandise and logistics agencies and suppliers
   

You must have:

• 7+ years of experience in brand activation, experiential marketing, events, sponsorships or a related brand management discipline.
• Proven experience leading end-to-end brand activations for high-profile events, campaigns or sponsorship programmes.
• Strong understanding of brand strategy, positioning, visual identity and how experiences shape brand perception.
• Experience translating brand strategy into clear activation concepts, customer journeys and practical delivery plans.
• Demonstrated ability to manage complex projects, budgets, timelines, suppliers and multiple stakeholders in a global environment.
• Experience briefing, directing and evaluating creative, production, event and merchandise agencies.
• Strong working knowledge of event branding, environmental graphics, content, digital touchpoints and live experience delivery.
• Experience managing sponsorship activation, including partner coordination, rights application, brand integration and activation planning.
• Experience managing branded merchandise programmes, catalogues, suppliers and bespoke order governance.
• Sound commercial judgement, with the ability to balance brand impact, operational feasibility, sustainability and value for investment.
• Strong governance mindset and confidence reviewing and approving brand applications across varied formats and channels.
• Excellent stakeholder management and influencing skills, with the ability to build alignment across senior leaders, teams and external partners.
• Ability to manage multiple priorities calmly and precisely in a fast-paced, deadline-driven environment.
• Strong written, verbal and presentation skills, with the ability to articulate clear creative and strategic rationale.
• Comfort using collaboration, workflow and creative review tools; familiarity with Figma, Canva and/or Adobe Creative Suite is beneficial.
• Curiosity and confidence in applying AI and automation to improve planning, governance, asset development and operational efficiency.

It would be beneficial if you also had:

• Experience working in a B2B2C or hybrid B2B/B2C environment.
• Experience with global event portfolios, major industry moments or multi-market sponsorship activation.
• Knowledge of sustainable sourcing, merchandise production, fulfilment and inventory management.
• Multilingual capabilities and/or experience working across multiple geographies and cultures.