Job Summary

Reporting to the Senior Manager of Activations, the Activation Specialist role is 100% dedicated to supporting the Jimmy John’s business, playing a key role in driving growth, awareness, and relevance for the Jimmy John’s brand. Supporting IMC & Social teams and respective agency partners, this role will support national marketing initiatives through social-first, culturally-driven moments intended to drive buzz & earned media.

This role will lead daily team briefings on headlines and what’s trending and input into activation briefs to ensure they’re inclusive of social trends, creator & talent considerations, business goals and creative expectations.

This role support project management of all brand activations, including tasks like daily communication with agency partners, vetting and getting quotes from third-party vendors, assisting with product or supplies needed for shoots & productions, monitoring talent social channels to confirm posting meets quality & contract expectations, ensure proper tracking of activation-related social conversation to input into an end-of-campaign report, liaise with merch team to source proper merch items & designs to support activation efforts and engage with key potential talent via brand’s social media channels – among others.

This role must have an innate understanding and interest in social & pop culture and baseline knowledge of each major platform and their impact on culture. This role will serve as a liaison with the social team to ensure all activation-related social is on-brand and supports the goals of the activations to the highest potential of the platform, stepping in to assist with content creation if needed. This could include video, design or copywriting. The person in this role must be highly creative, incredibly organized, detail-oriented and actively engaged with social media on day-to-day basis.

Responsibilities:

• Coordinate execution of brand’s Buzz Calendar to drive forward social-first & culturally-driven activations laddering up to business objectives

  • Lead project management function of all brand activations, including but not limited to brand or talent partnerships, merch production, social-first content creation, giveaways or in-store elements

  • Input into agency briefings and internal 360º decks

  • Secure props, supplies or food product for shoots, productions or content creator partnerships as required

  • Provide detailed executional excellence during key activation moments throughout the year, including “boots on the ground” support if required

  • Work cross-functionally across social, IMC and PR teams to help lead holistic brand activation initiatives with a focus on brand relevance in culture

  • Communicate with our agency and third-party production partners to ensure approvals, deadlines and contract requirements are met

  • Coordinate details of activation-supporting merch items with Store Team

• Build brand’s relationships with social influencers, content creators and celebrities

  • Lead influencer engagement strategy, creating target list of influencers the brand should engage with

  • Maintain list of “Brand Friendlies” and rolodex of major influential social users who engage with the brand

  • Spearhead brand’s gifting and surprise & delight program by sourcing merch, packaging and designing messaging to speak to influencers personally  

• Effectively report on pop culture, social and industry trends and brand activation performance

  • Mine pop culture headlines and lead shareout of information to wider marketing team

  • Research other QSR brand activations across social and PR to stay ahead of the competition

  • Stay on top of key social platform trends

• Responsible for accuracy and quality of activation-supporting social content through internal social team, external agency or content creator collaboration

Requirements:

• 4 Year Degree preferred with 1-2 years of experience in social or PR

• Preferred experience: Sprinklr, hands-on community management, influencer management

• Is obsessed with pop culture, with a focus on entertainment and creator culture

• Has a sound cultural intuition with the ability to think outside of personal biases

• Is super detail oriented, and able multi-task across various projects

• Is proactive and can work quickly and efficiently with tight deadlines

• Can work cross-functionally with social and IMC teams to develop and execute a full 360 activation plan

• Isn’t afraid to ask questions, and challenge themselves to be better with every activation

• Is able to share ideas and with a “yes and” mentality

• Isn’t afraid to be the boots on the ground team member

Around 25% Travel Required

 

Inspire is a multi-brand restaurant company whose portfolio includes more than 33,000 Arby’s, Baskin-Robbins, Buffalo Wild Wings, Dunkin’, Jimmy John’s, and SONIC restaurants worldwide.

We’re made up of some of the world’s most iconic restaurant brands, but we’re much more than just a restaurant company. We’re a team of hundreds of thousands who individually and collectively are changing the way people eat, drink, and gather around the table. We know that food is much more than a staple—it’s an experience. At Inspire, that’s our purpose: to ignite and nourish flavorful experiences.