PLACED: Associate Director, Strategy; $120K+, NYC

This funky, award-winning digital agency brings together product design, brand communications and social content to help businesses thrive. These guys are also a little weird, extremely collaborative, and sometimes communicate entirely in gifs with the account, design and technology teams.  We’re now looking for a curious, down-to-earth strategy lead with 8+ years experience to round out this special team. You’ll be able to show examples of how you’ve wrestled to understand business problems, to find provocative insights, and to create strategies that have ideas. You know the fundamentals of brand planning and how they can be applied to shape (or be shaped by) digital and social.

Why this shop? The strategically hungry come to this agency to break free from thinking-by-department, to get closer to making, and to work with clients striving to recalibrate their business around digital. You will be involved in everything from unearthing and articulating the leading insight, partnering with Analytics to define a data vision, through to a shared accountability for the creative product.

What we need from YOU:

You like brands – you get excited and inspired to do good work for ambitious brands.

You grew up digital – this isn’t about spending every waking hour on Twitter. It’s about showing that you’ve played with a lot of the digital world, that you’ve experimented and learned – sometimes for work, sometimes for the sake of it.

You can tell a story – you understand narrative structure and can shape and reshape content and work to ensure that is impactful and human. You can also package and present a compelling story.

You can manage a team – you can inspire and manage a group of strategists and strategic thinkers from multiple disciplines.

You can work with fellow digital grown-ups – an eclectic mix of designers,technologists, strategists, producers and analysts.

You love this stuff – stories of innovation, trends and topics that inspires you both online and offline. We want a person who keeps the team inspired, curious and open-minded.

Sounds great? Shoot your resume/portfolio to hunter@thehuntinglodgenyc.com.

Not for you? Please share with your network and get someone working!

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PLACED: Group Strategy Director, B2B, $175-225K, NYC

Award-winning business communications agency is seeking a Group Strategy Director for their mid-sized B2B branding shop. This role will manage US and global projects for clients in finance, consulting, technology and healthcare, etc. This person will help guide other junior Strategists in crafting engaging client deliverables. Qualified candidates will be part of an established team with a track record of strong client relationships and streamlined, proven methods and processes in brand strategy disciplines. Candidates should be well versed in areas such as the following, in order of importance:

-Corporate brand architecture analysis and recommendation development

-Brand strategy development including positioning, archetypes, brand essence, etc.

-Messaging strategy, including voice

-Nomenclature strategy

-Naming development

-Brand launch and rollout plans

-Marketing strategy and campaign strategy development

-Content strategy

-Developing creative briefs for advertising and visual identity

-Qualitative research including discussion guide development, conducting in-depth interviews and focus groups

-Quantitative research including questionnaire development, survey programming and analysis

-Ability to lead, train other mid-level and junior strategists

From day one, qualified candidates will be able to lead these types of projects, providing guidance to both team members and clients, using expertise and anecdotes from past experiences on brand strategy projects. For example, regarding brand architecture, you should be able to explain what it means at a corporate and product level, why it’s important, what basic portfolio strategies entail, and know how to go about developing a solution for a corporate client.  In addition, ideal candidates will posses:

-Ability to interface with and be the primary point of contact for C-Suite executives

-Strong writing prowess, including the ability to write articles and thought leadership pieces for publication

-Confidence and poise in speaking and delivering compelling presentations

-Comfort and experience managing various priorities and solving problems proactively

-Collaborative; you are joining a team oriented organization

-A willingness to build a positive, “employer of choice” culture

This role reports to the Managing Director. Prior branding agency experience and business to business experience required.

Sounds great?! Shoot your resume to hunter@thehuntinglodgenyc.com.  Not for you? Share with your network and get someone working!

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PLACED: Group Strategy Director, $200K, NYC

Are you a creative problem-solver who can think big, is a student of culture and is passionate about ideas? Come join the agency that creates buzz-worthy cultural conversation for exceptional brands.

You are a strategic, curious and creative leader who can drive business from strategy development through final execution. You have a proactive, accountability-first, leadership sensibility with a hands-on work style and ability to guide day-to-day activity as necessary. The Strategy team uses their business acumen and experience in conducting interesting research, identifying solid insights (across consumer, culture, category and company), writing concise briefs, inspiring great creative work that is strategically sound, and presenting the same convincingly. You’ll develop brand essence and other strategic deliverables, and in collaboration with Media colleagues, own creation of campaign architecture and communications planning that will guide campaign development. You will have day-to-day responsibilities on marquee clients and should be equally comfortable leading C-Suite relationships as well as rolling up your sleeves and getting scrappy. You can find the human insight to solve a business problem and further develop that idea into actionable and superior creative executions.

We need someone who’s a nerd about strategic craft. Authorship is central to all the agency does –storytelling is their art – especially in service of smart business and brand building opportunity. We need someone with a strong toolbox for creating and directing strategic efforts – experience across categories and clients – and some seasoning in leading teams and businesses. We need someone with a cultural nose – an inner passion to know the code behind the passions people subscribe to – and a range of work that shows experience translating insight across problems, businesses and brands. We need someone who likes to get into the brain of the businesses.  Strategic power can be most valuable in story-selling – so it’s important to see evidence that insights and ideas are leveraged to elevate the brand IQ of clients and their creative work.

Please… be collaborative and welcoming; people need to feel they can ask for your help and actively involve you in discussions with clients and amongst the team. You are quick thinking and smart, able to debate complex issues with clients at length and under pressure. To that end, you likely have a natural authority and can clearly and brilliantly express complex ideas simply. However, you need to act in an ‘open’ way, responding openly to client questions, seeking information from other parties and sharing the knowledge you have. Your ‘can do’ spirit is infectious and attractive to both colleagues and clients. Category diversity is a plus; 12-15+ years strategic planning experience a must.

Sounds great? Please shoot your resume/portfolio to hunter@thehuntinglodgenyc.com. Not for you? Share with your network and get someone working!

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PLACED: Planning Director, $170-190K, NYC

Small Agency of the Year winner! (Yup, this is where you need to work.)

Fun-spirited, indie ad shop is seeking a sharp-as-a-tack Planning Director to join their team. This agency works in an integrated way, and that means being able to fully appreciate any and all solutions to clients’ challenges. They don’t have pre-conceived solutions, and believe each idea/solution/opportunity should be carefully considered and thought through; you’ll lead the process of doing just that.  This is a creative-led agency that gets hired by direct-model clients who need every dollar to produce a result for them, not just to create awareness.

The Brand Planning team taps into the cultural, consumer, categorical, and company insights that inspire consumers. As such, you’re part brand storyteller and part comms planner.  You’re inspired by strategic challenges.  You’re a natural, charismatic leader. You’ve built and led teams in the past, and you are passionate about raising a community of insightful, curious, and culturally savvy Planners. Guiding your planning staff, your multidisciplinary colleagues, and your clients, you are a natural collaborator who lives to uncover insights into cultural trends and human behavior that clients simply cannot find on their own. You love to apply your learning and insights to strategies that make the creative team jump for joy. These strategies shape creative output and lead to work people can’t help but talk about – work that gets measurable results for clients. From print to social to design to media, your strategic brain and creative soul will inspire you to think innovatively and integrate all channels for increased consumer engagement.

If you have the ambition to help shape the planning approach for a mission-oriented agency, while working in tough-to-crack categories where true insight can lead to differentiating and inspiring work, then this could be your next work home. Please have at least 10 years of brand planning experience, with demonstrable skill in communications planning from a creative or media agency. You’ll need solid understanding of direct model principles, research methodologies, and experience across a wide range of businesses and categories. And please, be nice to be around.

Sounds great?! Shoot a resume to hunter@thehuntinglodgenyc.com. Not for you? Share with your network and get someone working!

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PLACED: Associate Strategy Director, Integrated/Digital, $125K; NYC

This funky, award-winning digital agency brings together product design, brand communications and social content to help businesses thrive. These guys are also a little weird, extremely collaborative, and sometimes communicate entirely in gifs with the account, design and technology teams.  We’re now looking for sensational talent in the Brand Strategy space to round out this unique team, working on global tech and mobile brands.

There are three reasons why the strategically hungry come to this agency: to break free from thinking-by-department, to get closer to making, and to work with clients striving to recalibrate their business around digital. You will be involved in everything from unearthing and articulating the leading insight, partnering with the VP of Analytics to define a data vision, through to a shared accountability for the creative product.

YOU:

-Grew up digital: This isn’t about spending every waking hour on Twitter. It’s about showing that you’ve played with a lot of the digital world, that you’ve experimented and learned – sometimes for work, sometimes for the sake of it.

-Can grow business for the right reasons: You thrive in a pitch, but you can also patiently help clients achieve their goals and create opportunity for your team.

-Stay hands-on: It’s an open-space office and most teams sit together. Your role may stretch across teams, but we need you in the work, not just around it.

-Have a range of experiences: Across different categories executing traditional campaign work, brand building, social media and involvement in web/ product builds.  For this role, a technology or telecom background is a major plus.

-Can work with fellow grown-ups: This is an eclectic mix of designers, technologists, strategists and producers. You must be an adept facilitator of ideas and insights sessions and be able to bring the best out of collaborators.

-Are well versed in research techniques: An ability to get to the nub of the problem through thorough desk-bound, primary research or the latest tools and cultural trends.

-Can lead and manage a team: You’ll be guiding Sr Strategists and Jr Strategists to solve business problems requiring both high-level thinking/theory and tactical planning methods.

Sounds great?  Shoot your resume/portfolio to hunter@thehuntinglodgenyc.com. Not for you?  Share your network and change someone’s life!

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