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 and his network of sales and marketing specialists help niche food, travel, tech and lifestyle brands grow by developing and executing modern, scalable growth plans. 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 and creative teams, 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 the small town of Sonoma in Wine Country to develop the award-winning product line and be closer to investors. It didn't take long before the company was acquired by a Dublin, IRE based company Riverdeep (later Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) and grew dramatically. Jason held Creative Director responsibilities, managing international design teams and working with partner developers.
Jason then left to launch his own niche brand Dr.Moz (strange name, long story), a parenting and lifestyle brand specializing in gifts and gear for new and expecting fathers. From video games teaching men baby skills, to sporty daddy diaper bags, his product line was unique and 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 and websites to drive brand awareness and direct sales. Earned press (ABC News, BusinessWeek, Parents, The Chicago Tribune, Wired, MSNBC, etc.) also helped fuel 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" loved Sonoma, but decided to move back to 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 challenge now was to help a nationally distributed specialty cheese brand Cypress Grove Chevre (Humboldt Fog, anyone?) get it's groove back. Freshly acquired by Swiss dairy giant Emmi Group, Jason took on the exciting task of building and managing the 20+ year-old brand's first marketing team, doubling their eight-figure sales in under five years.
After Cypress Grove, Jason launched Gigantic Ventures. Not gigantic in reality, the name is a tongue-in-cheek reference to the micro-agency being a "team of one", and a nod to the fact that all gigantic businesses started small. Backed by a global network of designers, digital marketers, content creators, and sales consultants, he specializes in helping clients scale-up by developing modern marketing plans and building efficient teams to execute campaigns. And what's all this about an 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, let's just say that he's not shy about putting his clients on the map. Jason puts a little "tally-ho" in every brand he touches, which can sometimes mean unconventional Guerrilla marketing techniques are employed to ensure success.
As a Humboldt County native and owner of multiple businesses in the area, Jason has been excited to see the region’s continued growth through investment in its infrastructure and tourism economy. He's a staunch advocate for working remotely as a means to build businesses and small communities, and runs fledgling communities like Find a Remote Job (17K+ on Instagram) to support job seekers and Gigantic's clients' recruitment efforts. To date, Jason has placed hundreds of workers from mom-and-pop food brands of the future to multi-national agencies and tech companies including Visa and Microsoft to name a few.
Aside from his marketing and recruiting work, Jason lives among the redwoods in Eureka, California with his wife and two children. He owns and operates multiple restaurants, considers future comebacks to sports he would no longer be competitive in, and rumor has it...continues building an impressive PEZ collection. But like Bigfoot, no hard evidence exists to prove this collection is real.