Flow Water has its first senior marketing leader, bringing on Rethink Breast Cancer’s Alison Lawler-Dean as vice president of marketing and communications.

As the packaged water company has gained national distribution in the United States through Whole Foods and Amazon, the time was right for more senior leadership. The brand is now sold in 6,500 stores across Canada and has a strong direct-to-consumer business through its website. Lawler-Dean says her task is to replicate that success south of the border.

The Flow marketing team currently has six staff, including two in its Manhattan Beach, California office (with the remainder in Toronto). Over the next couple of months, Lawler-Dean will be building on that team, hiring across content marketing, retail and trade marketing and digital, she says.

Flow, founded in 2014, has centred its brand around sustainability, including through its packaging (which was redesigned earlier this year) and delivery in major cities via electric car. On the marketing side, it’s relied in part on a partnership with baseball star Josh Donaldson, who was the linchpin in its “Mind, Body, Flow” influencer campaign in 2016.

Lawler-Dean describes the move to leave Rethink Breast Cancer, where she was VP of marketing and communications, as a difficult choice. While there, she led several successful marketing programs, including its Cannes Lions-winning “Give-a-Care” product line, created with Lg2, helping to earn the organization a place on strategy’s 2017 Brands of the Year list. More recently, she worked with Sid Lee on “8008135,” a new hotline-inspired educational health campaign aimed at teens.

For its part, Rethink Breast Cancer has brought on Tania Kwong as its new director of marketing and communications.

Photo credit: Lauren McPhillips