About Gigantic Ventures Marketing
Gigantic Ventures LLC ("Gigantic") is based in far Northern California, where Bigfoot roams, craft beer rules, and kinetic sculptures are sacrificed to the raging Pacific Ocean. Founder, Jason Baxter is a leading marketing consultant in specialty foods with over 15 years in F&B, not to mention many years in travel and hospitality, tech, and lifestyle CPGs. Known for his data-informed marketing plans that are designed to be executed (not informational), they're customized to meet each client's specific goals and created to scale over time as budgets and teams grow. When appropriate, Jason acts as clients' Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) when recruiting and managing entire teams to execute custom campaigns.
Gigantic's Principal, Jason Baxter (LinkedIn) is based in Humboldt County's hub of Eureka, in far Northern California. From scrappy software startups to $3B global food brands, Jason has held Director-level roles for companies of all sizes. Some of his industry experience (B2B and B2C) includes:
Travel and Tourism, K-12 Educational Software, Baby/Parenting Market, Specialty Cheese, Baked Goods & Snacks, Chocolate, Charcuterie, Olive Oil, Restaurants, Hotel/Hospitality, and Technology among others.
(more about Jason below)
Jason Baxter, Principal
Jason works with CEOs, Executive Directors, CMO's and their marketing teams to open new markets and build high-performing businesses. Jason brings over 20 years of experience managing international marketing (15 years) and creative teams (5 years), and recruiting top talent for small startups and Fortune 500 companies alike.
>> Jason's Story:
Starting his career in educational software, Jason joined a small team in the unlikely fishing town of Trinidad, CA to develop a line of curriculum-based Language Arts software for the K-12 market. The team quickly moved to Sonoma, California's "Wine Country" hub to develop the award-winning edtech product line and be closer to investors. It wasn't long before the company was acquired by a Dublin-based company Riverdeep (later Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) and grew dramatically.
Jason held Creative Director responsibilities, managing design teams in Ireland and Sonoma until deciding to to launch his own niche brand. The startup "Dr.MOZ" (strange name, long story) was a parenting and lifestyle brand that specialized in gifts and gear for new and expecting fathers. From video games teaching men baby skills, to a line of sporty daddy diaper bags, his products were unique and his utilization of digital marketing was before its time. Working as a company of one from his Portland (ME) office, Jason built a network of online influencers to drive brand awareness and fuel sales along with parenting directories and niche content. Earned press (ABC News, BusinessWeek, Parents, The Chicago Tribune, Wired, MSNBC, etc.) also helped build buzz to earn traditional brick-and-mortar distribution in gift shops and baby boutiques across eight countries. Did we mention that at the time he had no kids of his own?
We should note, Mr. Baxter did finally get married and have kids. "The Baxters" set roots where Jason was raised, in California's Redwood Coast, nearly five hours north of Wine Country. It was here that Jason was able to jump back into the specialty food world, where he originally started his career as a freelance marketer in college. The new challenge was to help a nationally distributed specialty cheese brand Cypress Grove Chevre (Humboldt Fog, anyone?) get its groove back. Hired after an acquisition by $3BN Swiss dairy giant Emmi AG, he wrote the legacy brand’s first omnichannel marketing plan and built their initial team. They were able to double sales and reestablish the brand as the national leader in the category in under five years by building the marketing function from the ground up. Everything was retooled, from their digital marketing strategy to their B2B and B2C event calendars. Retailer training programs were developed, qualitative research was conducted, and the first formal new product development program was launched. Progress was measured, campaigns were refined, and joy was reintroduced to the brand one partnership, event, and Instagram post at a time.
After Cypress Grove, Jason launched Gigantic Ventures. Not gigantic in reality, Gigantic is a micro-agency, backed by a global network of designers, digital marketers, content creators, and sales consultants, Jason specializes in helping clients scale-up by developing modern marketing plans and building efficient teams around these plans to execute campaigns. And what's all this about Gigantic's pirate octopus? The octopus is a symbol of Jason's onmichannel marketing approach; integrating all possible channels used by customers into a single unified brand experience. Regarding the pirate reference...he's not shy about getting clients noticed. Jason puts a little "tally-ho" in every brand he touches, which can sometimes mean unconventional guerrilla marketing techniques are employed to ensure success.
Aside from his marketing and recruiting work, Jason lives among the redwoods in Eureka, California with his wife, two children, and two dogs. Rumor has it, there's an impressive PEZ collection somewhere behind the redwood curtain, assembled by Jason through the years. But like Bigfoot, no hard evidence exists to prove this collection is real.