Director of Brand & Media

Job Description

Job Description

About Ekiben

Ekiben is a Baltimore-born restaurant company built around great food, genuine hospitality, creativity, and community.

As we continue to grow, we are looking for someone to lead how Ekiben tells its story.

The Director of Brand & Media will own Ekiben's outward-facing brand presence across social media, digital content, public relations, restaurant launches, events, partnerships, and other storytelling opportunities.

This isn't a traditional corporate marketing job. We want someone who understands culture, food, people, and what makes a brand interesting—and who can translate what happens inside our restaurants into content and stories people actually care about.

What You'll Own

Brand & Content Strategy

• Develop and manage Ekiben's overall brand and content strategy.
• Own the company-wide content calendar and coordinate it with restaurant events, openings, menu launches, collaborations, holidays, and major company initiatives.
• Make sure important events and campaigns are promoted early enough to actually drive awareness and business—not simply documented after they happen.
• Maintain a consistent Ekiben voice and visual identity across platforms.
• Identify stories happening within Ekiben that are worth telling.

Social Media & Content

• Lead Ekiben's social media presence across Instagram, TikTok, and other relevant platforms.
• Develop, capture, produce, write, edit, schedule, and publish content.
• Spend time inside our restaurants understanding our food, employees, customers, and culture.
• Capture real-time content during restaurant openings, collaborations, special events, and community activations.
• Develop repeatable content series while leaving room for spontaneous and culturally relevant storytelling.
• Work with photographers, videographers, designers, creators, agencies, and other outside partners when appropriate.
• Lead and manage the marketing team, providing direction, support, and feedback to ensure projects are completed effectively and on brand.
• Maintain and update the restaurant’s website and marketing materials, including menus, promotional materials, and other guest-facing content.
• Collaborate with graphic designers and other creative partners to develop marketing materials such as flyers, promotional pieces, signage, and digital assets.

Public Relations & Storytelling

• Develop and maintain relationships with local, regional, and national media.
• Identify opportunities for press coverage, interviews, features, awards, and collaborations.
• Coordinate incoming media opportunities and help prepare Ekiben team members for interviews.
• Write or coordinate press releases, company announcements, media materials, and brand statements.
• Help tell the larger Ekiben story as the company expands into new neighborhoods and markets.

Campaigns, Events & Restaurant Openings

• Build media and marketing plans around restaurant openings, menu launches, collaborations, pop-ups, festivals, and major events.
• Coordinate closely with operations, catering/events, design, and leadership so the marketing calendar reflects what is actually happening across the company.
• Create pre-event, live-event, and post-event communication plans rather than treating events as one-time social posts.
• Develop launch playbooks that can be repeated as Ekiben opens additional locations.

Brand Management

• Protect what makes Ekiben feel like Ekiben as the company grows.
• Help establish brand standards for photography, writing, design, partnerships, social media, and external communications.
• Review opportunities and partnerships for brand fit.
• Make sure growth does not result in the brand becoming overly corporate or disconnected from the restaurants and communities that built it.

Performance & Planning

• Establish clear goals and KPIs for campaigns and channels.
• Track audience growth, engagement, reach, earned media, website traffic, campaign performance, and other relevant metrics.
• Look beyond vanity metrics and evaluate whether campaigns are actually driving awareness, restaurant traffic, event attendance, recruiting, or other business outcomes.
• Provide regular reporting to leadership on what's working, what's not, and what Ekiben should try next.

Who We're Looking For

You may be a strong fit if you:

• Have 5+ years of experience in brand marketing, media, social media, communications, content, PR, or a related field.
• Have experience owning a brand or major consumer-facing account rather than only contributing to one.
• Are an excellent writer and storyteller.
• Understand social media intuitively but don't believe social media alone is a marketing strategy.
• Can recognize a great story, capture it, and turn it into compelling content.
• Are comfortable directing photography and video and can create content yourself when needed.
• Can build systems and calendars without making creative work feel overly corporate.
• Are highly organized and can manage multiple restaurants, events, launches, and deadlines simultaneously.
• Are comfortable working directly with restaurant operators and spending significant time in the field.
• Understand that some of the best moments in hospitality happen outside of traditional office hours.
• Can receive feedback without being overly attached to your own ideas.
• Care about food, restaurants, Baltimore, hospitality, culture, or community.
• Effectively manage competing priorities and deadlines in a fast-paced environment, adapting quickly and remaining composed when priorities shift or last-minute requests arise.

Restaurant, hospitality, food, lifestyle, entertainment, or consumer-brand experience is strongly preferred, but we are open to talented people from outside the restaurant industry.

Portfolio Required

Please include a portfolio or examples of work with your application.

We're particularly interested in seeing:

• Brands or accounts you've helped develop
• Social campaigns
• Photography/video
• Writing or storytelling
• Launch campaigns
• Earned media/PR work
• Projects where you can explain what you specifically owned

Beautiful content is great. We also want to understand the strategy behind it and what happened as a result.

What Success Looks Like

Within your first year, we'd expect to see:

• A reliable company-wide content and communications calendar
• Stronger coordination between restaurant events and marketing
• Consistent promotion before major events and launches
• A recognizable and consistent Ekiben voice across channels
• Repeatable launch plans for new restaurants
• Strong relationships with relevant media and community partners
• Better measurement of marketing performance
• More proactive storytelling and less reactive posting
• A brand that continues to feel authentic as Ekiben grows

How to Apply

1. Your résumé
2. A portfolio or examples of relevant work
3. A short introduction telling us why Ekiben interests you
4. Two or three examples of work you're particularly proud of and what your role was in creating them

We care more about the quality of your work, judgment, creativity, and ability to execute than whether your résumé follows a traditional path.

\nCompany Description

We have a very ambitious goal at Ekiben. We are trying to change the way people think about food. We believe that fine dining quality food does not have to cost an arm and a leg, nor does it require servers or extensive wine lists. We achieve this by creating a team of high performing people who believe in our mission and who are willing to dedicate their talents and skills into making it a reality.

Company Description

We have a very ambitious goal at Ekiben. We are trying to change the way people think about food. We believe that fine dining quality food does not have to cost an arm and a leg, nor does it require servers or extensive wine lists. We achieve this by creating a team of high performing people who believe in our mission and who are willing to dedicate their talents and skills into making it a reality.