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Director, Strategy
Initiative
New York, NY, United States
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Position Summary
Strategy creates the opportunities for brands to lead in culture, designing and defining how a brand will live, play and thrive in the world. They are the voice of the people, using deep and intuitive cultural understanding of consumers and communications to develop the strategic direction a brand must take. They translate business goals into actionable communications tasks, first identifying and then designing the most profitable audience, space or place for the brand to occupy. The Strategists believe that everything communicates and that ‘media’ can and should mean more in today’s world - that there is a ‘better way’ - and that propels them to constantly challenge convention to add value, unlock untapped market potential and generate unfair share of hearts and minds.
As a Strategy Director, you are responsible for the creation of the strategic direction a brand will take in communications to achieve their business goals. You are responsible for helping to strategize, produce and make sense of the key cultural, consumer and market intelligence required to design the best possible holistic communications plan to deliver on that task. This work should be held up as best practice both within the agency and externally – recognized by winning awards and client scores.
You have a passion for people, brands and ideas and an insatiable curiosity for culture in every sense. You believe that brands can & should mean in the world, and are driven by the desire to understand the changing world and people’s subsequent shifting motivations and behaviors.
You are responsible for creating the strategic recommendations and engaging with the client in an advisory capacity. It is not your responsibility to manage the client relationship & you will – by Brief – report to the Client Lead to deliver brilliant strategic thinking for the client team. Creative thinking, sound presentation skills & leadership behaviors are critical in delivering success in this role.
You should produce work that drives re-appraisal of communications and what media can do in the world, and your work should be seen as driving the agency forward.
You are responsible for ensuring that the Strategists’ work is strong and sound. That it has considered all consumer, category and culture trends, helping them to think about new ways to respond to a brief and encouraging them to work – with you – alongside the Analytics, Comms Design and Client teams to deliver better, smarter and more innovative work.
Essential Responsibilities
• Client
◦ Maintaining excellent client relationships & understanding of the clients' key business and challenges
◦ Being considered a valuable contributor during client meetings with the ability to challenge others’ opinions in the right forum/manner
◦ Delivering innovative thinking that inspires leading edge solutions and award-winning breakthrough work – best in class work as standard (internally & externally)
◦ Arming the client team with knowledge & expertise to speak confidently about the strategic direction where required
◦ Measurable client & strategy business KPIs
• Internal
◦ Identify, develop & oversee the delivery of unique and innovative strategies to deliver the client’s desired results
◦ Demonstrate a good understanding of consumers & their behaviors
◦ Clearly demonstrate how the strategy delivers on the business need and focus on results and measurement
◦ Lead Infinity Planning for the team and client base
◦ Bring fresh thinking & inspiration into the Strategic Process to help the teams springboard to better Strategic thinking
◦ Drive usage of the Cultural Analytical Process/Tools to help teams find new insights that unlock growth
◦ Deliver executable, relevant, on brand platforms with the potential for fame/award entry
◦ Write cohesive communications architectures that deliver on the platform and give guidance for how the brand will play in culture
◦ Train, guide & assist the Strategy & Client teams in development and packaging of ideas
◦ Positively collaborate with SBU and independent creative partners, contributing to their/our client work
◦ Use qualitative and quantitative comms channel & cultural tool research to develop applicable insights into the consumer connection with the brand
◦ Partner with Analytics to develop new tools, inputting into the development of new & cutting edge proprietary planning, research and reporting models for Initiative
◦ Lead ideation team sessions in conjunction with the Comms Design team and relevant SBUs to generate creative & compelling communications ideas
• Commercial
◦ Contribute to Agency & Client revenue opportunities through Strategic output
◦ Proactively work with all partners (vendors, academic institutions, creative consultancies) to unlock new growth opportunities for the client &/or the agency
• New Business
◦ Contribute to new business success (local market)
◦ Participation in new business as required, leading Strategy
Qualifications:
Education:
• Bachelor's degree
Work Experience:
• 8+ years in integrated planning role in media, creative, innovation or communications discipline (digital, content, invention, social, activation)
Skills:
• Ability to think differently: creative & adaptive, entrepreneurial, independently-minded; deeply immersed in cultural understanding and driven by a desire to know more the world / to better understand people’s motivations & behaviors in the shifting landscape
About Us
Initiative is different to other media agencies. We are not trapped by a legacy structure primarily centered on paid advertising. Instead, we are liberated by a new world structure designed to deliver highly differentiated and highly effective communications strategies for our clients. We’re not the biggest agency in town. So rather than outsize our competitors we must outsmart them. That’s why we’ve built the strongest strategic capability of any agency in the market. Core to this strategic capability is an obsession with culture and how brands can pivot from brand advertising (which is forgettable) to cultural branding (which is highly memorable). Our new world model is comprised of four central “craft centers” – Client Advice and Management, Strategy, Communications Design and Partnerships