Former Red Bull CMO Ken Turner has been named as the first Chief Marketing Officer of Fanatics Collectibles, Fanatics‘ growing trading cards and collectibles business.
Collectibles have become a big focus for the sportswear platform, which solidified its ambitions in the space with the acquisition of Topps in January 2022.
In the newly created role, Turner will further build out the division’s marketing organization and oversee brand vision, strategy and marketing efforts across Fanatics Collectibles’ portfolio of physical and digital collectibles. Turner will report directly to Mike Mahan, CEO of Fanatics Collectibles.
“As our collectibles business continues to see enormous opportunities for growth, I’ve been focused on building out a world-class team to execute our vision for delivering the best collector experience possible, bringing in more fans into the sector and creating truly connective moments across culture and sports,” said Mahan in a statement. “Marketing the category is one of our highest priorities, and I couldn’t think of a better fit to lead this effort than Ken given his incredible track record and expertise that perfectly aligns with our business goals.”
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Before joining Fanatics Collectibles, Turner was EVP and Chief Marketing Officer at Red Bull North America. Prior to Red Bull, he spent 10 years in traditional CPG at SC Johnson where he worked on a number of large-scale consumer brands.
“I couldn’t be more excited to join Fanatics Collectibles during a time of incredible growth and opportunity in the collectibles category,” said Turner in a statement. “Our business sits at the intersection of sports and culture, with an enormous amount of passion from the collecting community. The combination of those factors opens abundant possibilities to not only enhance the collector experience today, but to grow the category overall, bring in new audiences and build cultural relevance through unique experiences that we’re perfectly positioned to deliver to fans.”
Turner is now tasked with helping to bring in more fans to the trading card hobby and collecting spaces. As part of those efforts he will work closely with Fanatics Collectibles’ partners, including sports leagues, player’s associations, athletes and creators, to deepen storytelling in the category and create compelling campaigns, activations and experiences through the divisions marketing, advertising and content verticals.
That storytelling will also likely include live commerce in tandem with the new Fanatics Live division that the company announced earlier in February 2023. Set to launch in the second half of this year, Fanatics said that live content efforts will focus first on the Collectibles business.
