As the brand manager for Mercury Racing, Andrea Jansen finds her affinity for speed on the water growing every day. She’s already headed six new product launches, most notably the 450R outboard engine and most recently the 300R outboard with the Advance Mid-Section, since joining the Fond du Lac, Wis., team three years ago. The 41-year-old Jansen, who holds

a marketing degree from the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh, worked in the hospitality industry before she joined Mercury Marine almost 10 years ago as its first social media specialist. There she worked closely with Steve Fleming, the widely respected former longtime public relations man for the company. And she learned.

Captured here with some of her Mercury Racing teammates, Andrea Jansen (third, from right) has raised the Fond du Lac, Wis., company’s digital marketing game by inspiring supporting projects such as the Speed On The Water “In The Lead” video series.

HOW DID YOU COME TO YOUR POSITION AT MERCURY RACING?

After seven years working on the main brand marketing team in a variety of roles, mainly focused on digital marketing, I was approached by Steve Miller (Mercury Racing’s director of marketing) who asked if I had any interest in the Racing brand. I loved the main brand team and I enjoyed working for current Mercury Marine chief marketing officer Michelle Dauchy, a strong female leader in our organization.

But Mercury Racing? For me, it was the Holy Grail of marketing jobs. It was a no-brainer, the opportunity I had been working so hard for.

DESCRIBE YOUR ROLE AT THE COMPANY?

Though my title—brand manager—sounds very corporate, my role is to bring this brand to life for our customers and enthusiasts—and even people who don’t know they are destined to be Mercury Racing customers. Every day, I interact with our entire team, from engineering to production to leadership to finance. And what I see in every department and every person who works here is passion, not just passion for what we make, but passion for how well we make it. Attention to detail. Craftsmanship. Efficiency. I don’t make up those words for advertisements—it’s what we do here. My job to make sure the world knows how special this brand and company are. So though I manage advertising, product launches, events, brochures, websites and social media, it’s all with the very specific purpose of telling that unique brand story.

YOUR MAIN FOCUS IS ON DIGITAL CONTENT, MARKETING AND ADVERTISING. WHY?

Digital marketing is still my professional passion because there is such an immediacy to it. There is great satisfaction in seeing, feeling and hearing people react to the content you create in real time. It’s fun to conceptualize an idea, to mold it into something real and then unleash it through digital channels where you can almost instantly understand how people feel about it, whether it brings them joy, excitement, surprise or whatever. When the reaction to what you create matches your own excitement and passion, it’s a rush. And that is honestly what fuels me to always be thinking ahead. Planning what is next for the brand. How can we make it more exciting? How can we make it more real and tangible? How can we deliver content that truly demonstrates the thrill of the Mercury Racing product?

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