Profile: Kirsten Barner, Senior Director of Marketing and Future Forward, Alliance Sales & Marketing

Whether building a department, bringing on new brands and retailers for marketing campaigns, or spearheading a new initiative, Kirsten Barner is an innovator and always fosters a progressive environment for herself and those around her. She has built and developed a successful marketing team in her time as senior director of marketing and future forward at Alliance Sales & Marketing.Barner holds a degree in business administration, marketing and operations management from the University of North Carolina at Wilmington. She started her career in 2007 in sales and marketing at Press Pass, a trading card company. In 2014, she moved to Daymon Worldwide, working as a marketing manager for Harris Teeter. In September 2018, she joined Alliance, also as a marketing manager.“We tell client stories, grow brands and build success nationwide using an omnichannel approach,” she says. “True creativity and digital solutions are becoming increasingly important in order to provide content and messaging that is of value to consumers and to meet consumers on platforms that are becoming widely accepted and adopted.”Under her direction, the Alliance marketing team has been able to drive a new type of client support. “We’ve had many clients who feel confident in using us as their broker, not only because of the company’s proven success and years of experience in the industry, but also because of both its commitment and the marketing team’s drive to remain future-forward and solution-oriented,” says Barner, who was promoted to her current post in early 2019.She’s most proud of a project in which she and her team were able to partner with Harris Teeter to develop several creative and cross-promotional opportunities for brands Fage, Kodiak Cakes, Organic Valley, Red’s and A2. The marketing team brought them together in a meaningful way for the consumer, the retailer and the brands by creating a protein-rich campaign, she says.“Using data – establishing benchmarks and KPIs – the team created a successful social media commercial (storyboarding, shooting, editing), a shoppable Pinterest video directing to the retailer’s e-commerce page, and an electronic flysheet emailed to the most engaged shoppers [and] also directing to the retailer’s e-commerce page,” she says.With co-branding and negotiating, the company was able to help each brand save marketing dollars and participate in more marketing vehicles than their budgets would potentially allow had they worked individually, Barner notes. Additionally, all items in the promotion saw a positive lift during the week, with three brands generating triple-digital growth and one registering the largest promotional increase it had seen in the last 52 weeks.Barner also proposed and spearheaded the creation of a subscription service that partners with retailers and food brands to ship customized boxes to retailer dietitians every quarter; helped develop an internal effort called “Alliance Cares,” a cultural initiative that highlights employees who have volunteered in their communities; and serves as a co-chair for the Network of Executive Women.

Profile: Kirsten Barner, Senior Director of Marketing and Future Forward, Alliance Sales & Marketing

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