Head of Marketing, Vintage (12-month FTC)

Head of Marketing, Vintage (12-month FTC)

Are you a brilliant communicator with the drive and vision to create and deliver industry-leading campaigns across a range of genres? Would you love the opportunity to play a central role in imprint and catalogue strategy? Vintage are looking for a strategic and creative marketer, reporting to the Marketing Director of Vintage and working as part of a team of twelve with two direct reports.

About the team

At Vintage, we are dedicated to bold publishing.

Our books encourage all sorts of readers all over the world to think differently in big and small ways. We make a book the best of its kind, with publishing expertise and world-class design.

Vintage publishes a broad portfolio of award-winning and bestselling titles across fiction, non-fiction, poetry and graphic novels. Some of the UK’s oldest and most prestigious imprints make up Vintage publishing, including Chatto & Windus and Jonathan Cape. These imprints are joined by newer or relaunched imprints: The Bodley Head, Harvill, Fern Press, and Vintage Classics with its distinctive red spine design. Vintage is part of Penguin Random House UK.

Vintage authors include Margaret Atwood, Yuval Noah Harari, Rory Stewart, Nigella Lawson, Tim Spector, Haruki Murakami, Ocean Vuong, Samantha Harvey, Gabrielle Zevin, Abir Mukherjee and Jo Nesbo.

The role

In this role you will lead marketing strategy for key titles at Vintage, working across our range of imprints with particular focus on designing and executing best-in-class campaigns for Jonathan Cape. You will also lead marketing strategy for our catalogue and classics lists, devising audience-led campaigns that drive discovery and sales. You’ll have management responsibility for a team of two direct reports and will form part of the senior marketing team.

Key responsibilities:

• Deliver outstanding, sales-driving campaigns for lead titles, as well as brand management for some of the Vintage biggest brand authors
• Marketer for Vintage’s Jonathan Cape imprint, supporting imprint growth strategy and acquisitions
• Lead Vintage’s catalogue and classics strategy from a marketing perspective, working closely with sales, editorial, publicity and with data and insight to identify and respond to opportunities to drive discovery and sales
• Contribute to divisional marketing strategy as part of the marketing senior management team, supporting the Marketing Director and leading on key projects
• Show leadership in creative thinking, strategic planning, taking an audience-led approach, on point positioning and copywriting, informed channel selection, campaign analysis, communication and collaboration
• Line management and talent development of two direct reports

What you’ll bring

Essential criteria:

• Proven track record in delivering high-profile, effective book marketing campaigns to the highest possible standard
• Extensive experience planning, executing and analysing campaigns to drive book sales and build author profiles
• Experience managing marketing strategy across a range of genres
• A strong eye for design and an understanding of what makes a consumer pay attention
• Excellent positioning and copywriting skills and an ability to build campaign strategies informed by audience insight
• Experience in creative direction of stand-out pitch documents and presenting marketing vision to prospective authors and agents with impact
• Proven people-management experience – an inspiring leader, a good listener who enables people to do their best work
• A clear, confident and energising communicator, able to manage stakeholders, influence colleagues and impress authors and agents
• A strong team player and a positive champion for our books, team, brand and division, focused on building a network and sphere of influence across the trade
• Confident running self-service advertising campaigns across platforms, e.g. Meta, TikTok, Google, as well as with using Adobe Creative Suite
• Significant experience of working with agencies – from media agencies to creative teams across different media

Application instructions

Please apply with your CV and cover letter outlining why you are the right candidate for the role by 11:59pm on Sunday 25th May.

• As part of your cover letter, please tell us about a recent marketing campaign that you thought was effective and why.
• Please note we are looking for someone to join the team in early September 2025.

Salary

Circa £50,000-£55,000 annual salary dependent on how your skills and experience align to the role, plus bonus and benefits.

What you can expect from us

Hybrid working

While our offices across the UK are places to connect, collaborate and celebrate with colleagues, we recognise that flexibility around where you work is just as important. For this role we expect that you will attend the office a minimum of two days per week, typically Tuesday and Thursday.

About Penguin

We’re the UK’s largest publisher; made up of some 2,000 people and publishing over 1,500 books each year. Our doors are open to all kinds of talent. In a constantly evolving industry, we work hard to stretch the definition of the word publisher. Here, you’ll work with a breadth of talent who all play their part to make each of our books a success. Together, we make books for everyone because a book can change anyone.

The recruitment process

As a Disability Confident Committed organisation, we offer interviews to candidates with a disability who meet the essential criteria for the role, and opt-in on their application form. The essential criteria for this role are listed as part of the ‘What you’ll bring’ section. There may be times when the volume of applications means we cannot take all eligible candidates to interview.

We encourage you to tell us about any reasonable adjustments you may need by emailing PRHCareersUK@penguinrandomhouse.co.uk. Remember, you only need to share what you are comfortable to for us to support your request.

Please note, we are not able to accept agency CVs for this role. Any CVs sent speculatively will not be eligible for a fee.

Company: Penguin Books Limited 

Country: United Kingdom 

State/Region: London 

City: London 

Postal Code: SW11 7BW 

Job ID: 279706