Senior Director, Brand

Tell me about a time you built a brand strategy from the ground up for a company that was competing against a crowded set of players. What made your approach different from what the category was already doing?

What they are checking: whether the candidate can articulate genuine brand differentiation rather than surface-level positioning work

Walk me through how you've worked with a creative director in the past. Where did you draw the line between your input and their execution?

What they are checking: clarity on role boundaries and whether they can partner without either micromanaging or disengaging from creative

Describe a product marketing launch you led where the product itself was genuinely new to the market, not just an iteration. What was hardest about positioning it?

What they are checking: experience marketing novel products versus repackaging familiar ones

Tell me about a time an external agency relationship wasn't working. What did you do about it?

What they are checking: how they manage vendor accountability and whether they act decisively or let underperformance slide

You're part of a Marketing Leadership Team reporting to a CMO. Tell me about a time you disagreed with a peer or a boss on brand direction. How did you handle it?

What they are checking: how they navigate conflict with senior stakeholders and whether they can hold a position without becoming difficult to work with

Give me an example of a campaign or brand initiative that didn't perform the way you expected. What did you learn and what did you change?

What they are checking: honesty about failure and whether they iterate based on results

Tovala sits at the intersection of hardware, software, and fresh food. How would you think about building a brand narrative that ties those three things together instead of treating them as separate stories?

What they are checking: ability to synthesize a complex, multi-part product into one coherent brand idea

If you inherited a content and social calendar that felt scattered across channels with no unifying voice, how would you go about fixing it in the first ninety days?

What they are checking: practical prioritization skills and whether they have a real process versus generic answers

If leadership asked you to grow brand awareness while also protecting the retention and NPS numbers Tovala is known for, how would you balance those two goals if they started pulling in different directions?

What they are checking: strategic judgment when growth and brand equity priorities compete for the same budget

How do you use customer insights to actually change a marketing decision, not just confirm one you'd already made?

What they are checking: rigor and honesty in how they use research versus using it to justify existing plans

Tovala talks about best-in-class retention, engagement, and NPS. If you were asked to build the customer insights function here, what would you want to measure first and why?

What they are checking: whether they can prioritize signal over vanity metrics given the company's stated strengths

How would you decide what brand tracking or health metrics matter for a subscription meal company, versus a traditional CPG brand?

What they are checking: understanding of how brand measurement differs for a recurring-revenue, retention-driven business