Joe Reske
Verified Expert in Marketing
Marketing Expert
Dallas, TX, United States
Toptal member since October 24, 2022
Joe is a driven and highly accomplished senior consumer marketing executive with extensive experience in brand strategy; full-funnel marketing campaigns; earned, social, and paid media-mix management; budgeting; and event activation. He has provided leadership across a wide spectrum of marketing roles for world-class brands within CPG, retail, and hospitality, and he's an expert at developing bold and innovative solutions supported by data-driven analytics.
Project Highlights
Expertise
Work Experience
Head of Shopper Marketing and Sports Strategy
7-Eleven
- Led a team of marketers and agencies to develop the company’s first shopper marketing strategy, delivering 20 billion impressions across in-store, earned, and digital media and driving same-store sales growth twofold to plan.
- Drove record consumer-engagement growth of 15% on the 7-Eleven app and 500 million sweepstakes entries in the first year.
- Created the inaugural “super-fan” influencer crew, publishing 100+ pieces of social content at 60% below the benchmark cost.
- Developed the sports marketing strategy: secured exclusive rights in priority categories with three new sports partners, negotiated enhanced advertising assets, and repositioned messaging to increase brand consideration by 20% within the first year.
- Secured investments from 15+ external CPG brand partners that funded all marketing activities and delivered 2.5x ROI with high-quality content.
Vice President of Marketing
Fogo de Chao
- Led brand marketing and communications for all US locations of the largest Brazilian steak house ($400 million in annual revenue) across branding, media (digital, social, radio, OOH, Yelp), menu innovation and refresh, and new location marketing.
- Created and launched national media for new off-premise service in under two weeks in response to COVID-19 shutdowns; revenue exceeded expectations tenfold in the first two months and sustained into a $10 million annual business by its third quarter.
- Integrated a new agency of record and developed a new brand visual identity, positioning, and central media campaign.
- Tripled average weekly engagement while maintaining positive ROI with a granular social media, email, and CRM marketing strategy, despite 80% budget reductions due to COVID-19. Increased guest ratings by 20% over the previous year.
Senior Director of Marketing
Dean Foods
- Led and managed a core team of seven across all aspects of marketing (i.e., brand, innovation, category, and customer) for the $1.5 billion DairyPure brand and $600 million ice cream portfolio.
- Launched the company’s first direct-to-consumer fulfillment channel and executed a media plan to drive engagement via owned channels.
- Oversaw the development of a comprehensive selling strategy and three-year innovation pipeline to gain successful distribution on 35+ new SKUs across five unique brands for 2020.
Director of Marketing
PepsiCo Frito-Lay
- Created, commercialized, and launched 25+ salty snack SKUs, delivering $200 million in annualized revenue, and aligned leadership to a 4-year future product pipeline worth an additional $100 million annually in new business—exceeding plan by 10%.
- Launched an aggressive digital media strategy: created the Cheetos Twitter account (@ChesterCheetah), deployed native interactive content on YouTube and Google, and released a branded iOS gaming app, delivering 2 billion impressions.
- Increased household penetration by 3.1 points with an optimized $40 million media budget, leveraging award-winning content (top 5% companywide for effectiveness) across more efficient mediums (digital channels and shorter spots), driving 40% savings.
- Developed and executed a strategy for $150 million in new annual revenue streams by extending the Cheetos and Doritos mega brands into new subcategories for the first time: sweet (Cheetos Sweetos); nuts and seeds (Doritos Crunch Nuts).
- Negotiated and led a complex partnership with Universal Pictures, including Despicable Me 2 content integration, movie theater media (a first-time channel), and package and display takeovers. This beat plan by 85%—the biggest growth in 20 years.
Project History
Boost Your Rewards with Rocket League for 7-Eleven
https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/buckle-up-7-eleven-and-rocket-league-go-full-throttle-301488071.htmlCreated an integrated partnership, bringing 7-Eleven brands (Big Bite and Slurpee) into Rocket League with six limited-edition collectible items, paired with a digital campaign to create Model 711—the most 7-Eleven car ever—with fan participation.
The campaign had four primary components:
1. In-store unlockables—My team worked directly with the team at Psyonix (the developers of Rocket League) to create six limited-edition unlockable in-game cosmetics inspired by Slurpee and Big Bite Hot Dogs.
2. Digital promotion/content marketing—My team partnered with key influencers to promote each unlockable item with a top esports team (NRG), gaming site (IGN), and celebrities celebrating auto racing (Toni Breidinger) and soccer (Cristo Fernandez).
3. In-person sponsorship—I helped negotiate 7-Eleven as a title sponsor of the Slurpee Cup Spring Regional and as a major sponsor of the Spring Rocket League Championship Series.
4. Social engagement—Online fan votes determined custom elements to add to a real Ford Mustang to create the ultimate 7-Eleven car. Not only that—we gave away the car as our sweepstakes grand prize!
We drove 50,000+ new followers over eight weeks, sold out of all unlockables, and drove double-digit sales for participating items.
Fuel Your Fandom 360 Campaign for 7-Eleven
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNcH7YoLJzwCreated and deployed a national 360 program (in-store, digital, social, influencer, OLV, PR) to cast the first-ever Super Fan Influencer crew for 7-Eleven. Influencers delivered 100+ content pieces at 60% lower cost than traditional influencers.
I guided and supervised all the creative content and media planning with our agencies and led the team in developing key metrics. After creating the selection processes and methodology across three entry points—user-generated online content, in-store sweepstakes, and online application—my team selected the final 6-person crew.
To kick off the relationship, I created and managed a 2-day, in-person event to onboard the influencers and capture content. In that session and over the following eight months, the new crew captured and released 100+ pieces of social media content to promote key product launches, limited-time promotions, and other collaborations. My team was instrumental in maintaining ongoing engagement with the crew (although our social media team handled several of the individual content briefs).
Costs for the content saved 60% off expected rates without any loss in content quality.
Project TP
http://www.sucklemon.com/project-tpLed the agency to create virtual toilet-papering via Google Maps as a Halloween brand prank.
Using Google Maps and Street View APIs, our agency could digitally overlay virtual toilet paper on any address in the world with Street View, which included the interiors of many famous landmarks.
Overall, the short-term campaign in the two weeks leading up to Halloween drove more than 200 million impressions with an average engagement time of nine minutes per user, setting new records for the brand at that time. Based on the success of this prank, we created a follow-up prank for April Fools' Day using a fake cologne that smelled like Cheetos.
After many years, the brand continued to leverage the spirit of virtual TP in new metaverse activations in the fall of 2022.
Education
Master of Business Administration (MBA) in Marketing
University of Texas at Austin - Austin, TX, US
Bachelor's Degree in Marketing
University of Texas at Austin - Austin, TX, US
Skills
Core
Marketing, Influencer Marketing, Brand Strategists, Ad Campaigns, Shopper Marketing, Digital Marketing, Digital Campaigns, Email Campaigns, Social Media, Repositioning, Public Relations (PR), Content Marketing, Out-of-home (OOH) Advertising
Platforms & Tools
Google Analytics, Google My Business, Yelp
Other
Brand Management, Partnerships, Consumer Products, IRI, Paid Media, Consumer Insights, Data Analytics, Loyalty Programs, Customer Relationship Management (CRM), B2B Partnerships, Website Management, Innovation Strategy, Rebranding, Digital Media, Product Launch, Product Packaging, Contract Negotiation, Branded Content, SKU Rationalization, eCommerce, Direct to Consumer (D2C), App Design, Sponsorship
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