Associate Director, Brand Strategy

Code and Theory is looking for its next strategic leader to take world class brands to their next level of growth. As an Associate Director on the Brand Strategy team, this person will be a linchpin in our marketing and campaign clients’ work, ensuring the work is crafted and steered appropriately and to the highest of standards, and serve at the frontline of our interdisciplinary team of strategists, creatives, producers, engineers, analysts and more to our clients.

Because Code and Theory is a digital-first agency, born at the intersection of creativity and technology, a critical part of this role is activating creative, data-driven technology solutions that drive business outcomes. To do this, you will be expected to work with clients to understand their goals and objectives, identify what their brand needs to do to achieve them, bring in the right internal partners within Code to develop a plan (e.g., analytics, technology, creative), and deliver the most digital-first, data-driven, creative solution to get the job done (be it marketing strategies, activations, campaigns). You will also be expected to liaise with other external agencies to accomplish these outcomes, such as media agencies or research firms.

As an Associate Director focused on campaign and marketing, you will be primarily on two types of assignments: campaign development and digital ecosystem strategy. Campaign development responsibilities cut across the full lifecycle, including brand planning, creative briefing, supporting creative development, connection planning and content planning. This person should possess subject matter expertise across most of the following strategy disciplines and topic areas:

• Qualitative and quantitative research
• Campaign development
• Content development
• Digital paid media
• Social media platforms
• Digital experiences, services, and platform

Proactive and a self-starter, this person is able to quickly understand what activities and deliverables are required to steer a client engagement to success and effectively lead an integrated team to produce against that project vision. Please note that in this role, you should feel comfortable working across multiple clients and workstreams at once, and be able to manage priorities for yourself appropriately. This role reports to a Director or Senior Director of Creative Strategy, and may manage 1-2 reports.

WHAT YOU’LL DO

• Be accountable for overall success or failure of creative strategy on a given project: this role is the lead on many of the projects they staff
• Lead strategy for a given client engagement and present findings to client stakeholders
• Own the story and overall narrative of client presentations, bringing both creative and business rigor to the output
• Structure and lead creative brainstorms in order to ensure adherence to overall strategy; driving key decisions and communicate results to broader project team
• Conduct targeted research (sometimes with our analytics team or market research firm, sometimes on your own) into brand, audience, competitive, or business whitespace through reviewing of secondary and primary sources
• Lead development of materials required to support business development opportunities as required, including both written and creative deliverables
• In some cases, be accountable for the financial health of the engagement alongside your Production partner 

ESSENTIALS

• Advanced experience in digital marketing and/or advertising
• Digital experience a must, with proven experience in creating assets and experiences for digital ecosystems
• Expertise in qualitative and quantitative research methodologies and knowledge of when and how to apply them to client challenges
• Strong written and verbal communication skills—you will be responsible for building/ constructing the narrative of presentations for, and presenting to, C-level stakeholders at client organizations on high-profile assignments 

ABOUT US

Code and Theory is a digital-first creative agency that lives at the intersection of creativity and technology, which enables us to work across the entire end-to-end customer journey. We pride ourselves on not only solving consumer and business problems, but also helping to establish new capabilities for our clients.

Since 2001, we have helped redefine the publishing landscape, working with over 145 publishers in the process, while helping to create the first and second generation of digital-first publishers. Striving to never be pigeonholed, today we work across every major category, from tech to CPG, financial services to travel & hospitality, government and education, and partner with leading brands and startups alike, including adidas, Amazon, CNN, Con Edison, Estee Lauder, J.P. Morgan Chase, MARS, NBC, Samsung, Spotify, TikTok, and Xerox. 

Code and Theory has a dedicated healthcare practice, eponymously named Code And Theory Health, focused on driving category innovation as we've done for other industries over the past two decades, working with clients such as Pfizer, J&J and Bioreference Laboratories. 

The Code and Theory global network of agencies is growing and includes Kettle, Mediacurrent, Rhythm, and TrueLogic. Collectively, our team is comprised of nearly 1000 strategists, technologists, designers, analysts, and content creators, and with a remote-first approach to offices, we are distributed across North America, South America, Europe and Asia.

Code and Theory is an equal opportunity employer, and we value diversity at our company. DE&I at Code and Theory isn’t just an industry concept that we support, for us it is a mandate and a practice that we weave into everything we do, and everything we make, every single day.