About Us
Rally is a leisure and entertainment company that brings people together through pickleball, exceptional food and drink, and competitive socializing experiences. Rally exists to transform how active people socialize and social people move.
We're reinventing recreation because we believe in a world where sweat and socializing shouldn't be mutually exclusive. Starting with our flagship location in Charlotte’s South End, Rally’s mission is to be the nation’s premiere venue-based entertainment experience for active lifestyles.
Job Overview: As the Brand Activations Manager, you will help solidify Rally as a beloved Social Club destination. Your focus is to develop unique programming and activations that drive guest visits, brand awareness, and incremental revenue for Rally through off-court experiences. In this role, you will plan and manage weekly activations, curate quarterly one-of-a-kind tentpole experiences with local and global partners, support our local PR efforts, and, together with the marketing team, manage the merchandise that strengthens the connection between our guests and the Rally brand. You will be constantly on the lookout for opportunities to enhance the Rally off-court experience, coming up with creative ideas, partnerships, offers, and events to solidify Rally as a community hotspot for locals, members, and first-timers alike.
What You’ll Do:
- Develop Core Non-Pickleball Programming: Design and execute dynamic non-pickleball programming that enhances Rally’s status as a social destination. You’ll plan unique weekly activations that keep guests engaged and excited to return.
- Run Weekly Activations: Organize, market and manage regular, on-brand activations that create buzz, generate foot traffic, and drive incremental revenue, ensuring the Rally experience stretches beyond pickleball.
- Brand Partnerships & Activations: Cultivate partnerships with local and global brands to deliver exclusive, one-of-a-kind activations. Leverage these partnerships to create high-impact, memorable experiences that draw in net new guests, garner PR, and enhance brand presence.
- Elevate Special Pickleball Programming. Work closely with the Head of Pickleball to enhance pickleball special events with creative ideas that deliver on Rally’s goal to serve as a catalyst for connection.
- Brand Vision Connector: as an on-the-ground member of the marketing team, work closely with the GM of Rally Charlotte to ensure every guest touchpoint is on-brand and fulfilling Rally’s vision of being a catalyst for connection.
- PR & Communication: Support the Marketing Director in delivering a local PR strategy that ensures Rally’s programming (non-pickleball and pickleball), food & bev, and private event spaces are top of mind for media and influencers, as well as driving awareness in the Charlotte Market.
- Merchandise Management: Manage the merchandise program for Rally Charlotte, ensuring the merch wall looks brand-forward and fresh. Act as a thought partner to brief in merchandise needs, using sales data and customer feedback to evolve offerings. This role will also oversee visual merchandise and product fulfillment for merch purchased on rallypickleball.com.
- Cross-Channel Marketing: Collaborate with the rest of the Marketing team to craft campaigns and materials that promote our experiences and multiple channels (social media, digital platforms, email, and in-venue) to drive sales and expand brand reach.
- Community Building: Build and maintain strong relationships with local influencers, members, and partners. Engage key community figures and opinion leaders to enhance brand visibility and keep Rally top of mind.
- Experiential Marketing: Design experiential marketing campaigns aimed at connecting the Rally brand with the local community through pop-ups, partnerships, promotions, and hyper-local collaborations.
- Budget Management: Manage budgets for both activations and merchandise. Work closely with leadership to track, plan, and optimize spending while delivering maximum impact for each project.
Who You Are:
- Event Manager: You have experience running experiences from soup to nuts, ensuring they are on-brand and run smoothly
- Self-Starter: Entrepreneurial and driven, you can move quickly to execute projects with creativity and precision.
- Collaborator & connector: knows how to collaborate and communicate with multiple teams, acting as the bridge between the local Operations team and the Rally Entertainment marketing team.
- Ideator & Executor: Capable of dreaming up big ideas and turning them into actionable strategies. You can take a concept from inception through to delivery with exceptional attention to detail. You are not afraid to get your hands dirty.
- Creative Visionary: You’re an innovative thinker who can create both unforgettable experiences and a compelling merchandise line that strengthens the Rally brand. You’re up for doing things differently and trying (almost) everything once.
- Merchandising Expert: You have experience in merchandise management, including production, fulfillment, and optimizing sales strategies for branded products.
- Project Manager: A proven track record of managing successful activations and programs, balancing multiple projects, and executing them efficiently.
- Community Connector: You’re well-connected with local partners and influencers and excel at building relationships that elevate brand visibility.
- Data-Driven: You use data and customer insights to refine all experiential and product offerings, identify opportunities for growth, and optimize sales.
- Budget-Savvy: You’re comfortable managing budgets and ensuring that resources are allocated effectively to drive the greatest ROI.
Must haves:
- Must have minimum 3-5 years in event management, brand activations, brand marketing, or experiential marketing
- Must be willing to work from Rally 4x a week (partial days are fine pending event schedules)
- Musthave knowledge of Canva and able to use brand templates to create necessary marketing materials
At the end of the day you’ll be accountable for:
- Driving Incremental Revenue- build a new stream of revenue for Rally Charlotte by creating exciting, profitable activations and experiences as well as maintaining a solid business plan for Rally’s Merchandise
- Driving net-new traffic- getting new feet in the door through activations as well as local marketing & PR efforts
- Sell-through of local merchandise- optimize line plans & inventory to maximize profit of Rally merchandise
- Partnership building- create relationships with 3-4 local partners and establish 1-2 “big” partnerships by year-end together with the Marketing Director
- Local Buzz- show elevation of media hits, influencer mentions and Rally buzz locally.
