Estée Lauder Companies | Art Director

POSITION SUMMARY
As an Art Director on the talented team that makes up our in-house creative agency, ELC Studios, you'll be working closely with a team of creatives and alongside our prestigious beauty brands to concept, ideate and execute meaningful and impactful visual content and advertising across the Estée Lauder portfolio. Collaborating closely with photographers, videographers, designers and retouchers, you will be integral to leading our team of Art Directors towards creative excellence at our cutting-edge office and content studio, based in central London.

Working on a varied mix of briefs, from effective, high-impact local adaptation work and best-in-class video content to original conceptual advertising and campaign work, you'll art direct multi-channel creative projects with a consumer-centric, strategic, data-driven approach.

WHAT THIS ROLE DOES

• Developing and delivering impactful, beautiful, cutting-edge creative with strong storytelling, from ideation and visualisation to execution and delivery.
• Living and breathing our vision to create original, best-in-class work that speaks to its audience, informed by strategy, data and best practices, taking learnings from post campaign analysis and reporting.
• Acting as Brand Guardian, ensuring consistency, guidelines and Global teams' creative direction are adhered to, developing close relationships with these brands and championing their overarching creative vision.
• Collaborating with talented in-house videographers, designers, retouchers and photographers ensuring the vision is brought to life beautifully, within budget and to deadline.
• Working closely with Producers on projects towards the shared goal of delivering on-time and on-brief.
• Collaborating, directing and communicating with a studio of photographers, models, stylists, set designers and videographers on set.
• Presenting creative ideas and storyboards independently, communicating ideas clearly and confidently to brands.
• Collaborating with copywriters and directing dialogue on set to ensure brand and strategic messaging objectives are hit.
• Hands-on styling on set for smaller projects.
• Hands-on casting.
• Managing stylists, set design and other creative partners.
• Owning quality-control and oversight at final delivery.
• Acting as an ambassador of creativity, contributing to the creative culture of the team by sharing emerging trends in beauty, digital platforms, fashion, design, film, art and beyond.
• Oversight of creative projects, stepping in for the Senior Art Director when necessary.
• Supporting the Senior Art Director to deliver against business goals and team KPIs.
• Feedback on creative processes and offer solutions in order to help senior leads to improve our ways of working.
• Providing creative mentorship, leadership and guidance to junior team members.

Qualifications

WHAT YOU WILL NEED TO BE SUCCESFUL IN THIS ROLE

• Consumer-centric approach to work.
• Conceptual, ideas-first thinker.
• Strong management skills and the ability to lead by example.
• Bring energy, drive and vision to projects.
• Able to interpret data and business strategies into creative projects and rationale.
• Excellent written and presentation skills, confidence communicating with people at all levels.
• In-depth knowledge of digital platforms, audiences, nuances and best practices.
• Understanding of the importance of the role of messaging and copywriting in visual storytelling.
• Able to compellingly rationalise creative work.
• Possessing the agility needed to pivot and adapt creatively to change.
• Excellent problem-solving and negotiation skills.
• Hunger and drive to push boundaries and innovations in order to stay ahead of the curve.
• Excellent people skills, able to form strong relationships.
• Excellent organisational skills - filing of projects, juggling projects.
• Time management skills - hitting deadlines, organising and liaising with producers to map out project timelines.
• Refined taste levels with a rich and varied frame of reference.
• Tenacity, able to see projects through to delivery.
• Thorough understanding of luxury and beauty markets.
• Meticulous and detail orientated.
• Confidence in directing video and stills from concept to completion.
• Ability to find solutions to propose and create effective work at all budget levels.

Qualifications & Experience

• 5+ years experience in creative content and art direction either agency, beauty or luxury brand.
• Excellent frame of reference in design.
• Educated to Degree level or have relevant experience in their appropriate discipline and management experience.
• Comfortable with hands-on texture, product and prop styling.
• Thorough on-set direction experience.
• Experience and great contacts from prior experience within the fashion and beauty world.
• Experience in answering briefs at global campaign level.
• Proficient in Adobe CS.
• Experience working within Microsoft PowerPoint
• Experience with the admin side of creative - timesheets, filing, budgets and timings.

Must-haves

• Digital-mobile-first mindset
• Ability to think strategically
• Passion for or interest in the beauty sector
• Understanding of culture
• Understanding of marketing objectives
• Awareness of emerging trends
• Proactivity, positive can-do attitude
• Excellent leadership skills
• Collaborative mindset
• Consumer-first thinking
• Meticulous attention to detail

Nice to haves

• Background in graphics
• Knowledge of production
• Knowledge of creative process best practices
• Illustration skills
• Experience working closely with copywriters

Compensation and Benefits

• Hybrid Working (2 days WFH, 3 days office based)
• Generous Bonus Opportunity that usually performs ahead of target
• 25 Days Annual Leave (exc. Bank Holidays) that increases with length of service up to 29 days.
• 1 additional day of Annual Leave to celebrate your birthday
• Holiday Purchase scheme that enables you to get five additional days
• Summer Fridays for five months of the year
• Market leading Family Leave provisions
• Generous Staff Discount & Credit
• Benefits platform with exclusive discounts and offers
• Mental Health Wellbeing Provisions (Unmind App and Employee Assistant Programme)

Job: Creative / Design
Primary Location: GB-ENG-London
Job Type: Standard
Schedule: Full-time
Shift: 1st (Day) Shift
Job Number: 246720

Estee Lauder Companies is an equal opportunities employer. We positively encourage applications from suitably qualified and eligible candidates regardless of sex, race, disability, age, sexual orientation, gender reassignment, religion or belief, marital status, or pregnancy and maternity.