Job Openings at Brand Union

Job description

The Brand Union is a leading WPP-owned global brand agency with over 500 people in 23 locations, serving every major market. The agency has deep expertise in brand strategy, design, brand management and employee engagement, and is in the business of helping clients define, create, and curate positive moments of interaction. We believe the experience of the brand is the brand. For more information, visit www.thebrandunion.com and follow @TheBrandUnion

Job Purpose Summary

• Drive the highest standards of creative work across a core group of Brand Union clients to establish equity with existing and future clients
• To establish a strong understanding of each key client in the core business to best understand and help develop the following: -
• Potential creative approaches best suited to amplify creativity within new, current and on-going workstreams

• New opportunities to extend the reach of Brand Union within the clients' business
• Work actively with all creative and design team to develop skills and experience in leveraging big ideas across all channels
• To establish best practice ways of working; in accessing, developing and cultivating ideas within different disciplines and across all clients.
• To be aware of, and drive insight into, key design and consumer trends affecting categories worked
• To be an advocate and voice for Brand Union in; thought leadership, external communication and public speaking
• Maintain a constant understanding of the core relationships across the business from all relevant perspectives: workflows, upcoming initiatives, strategic drivers, client objectives, industry and category news, competitor understanding etc. Leverage this knowledge to identify opportunities, amplify creative output and develop business along side team leads
• Build support and work with colleagues from within Brand Union, as well as across the network, to ensure the creative output is delivered with maximum effect, consistently, globally, and with the network benefit of working with Brand Union obvious
• Be key to the creative leadership group of the wider studio and standards of work leaving the studio, through hiring the best talent and nurturing the skills and experience of the creative team.
• To actively support new business activity and help establish the best teams for the task

Key Responsibilities & Accountabilities

• Oversee creative/strategic development work to ensure presented work is of the highest possible standards. Challenge briefs and outputs constantly, as the internal champion for client work
• Establish and influence positively all creative interactions
• Creative Direction & consultancy
• Attend key client presentations, meetings and social events
• Engage Cross function CDs and management team in regular dialogue around relationship and commercial issues, through the Business Review sessions and as required (alongside Client Director)
• Ensure issues raised by client are addressed promptly and effectively
• To work as part of a team to deliver high quality work that is on time and within budget
• To make sure quality control procedures are adhered to, checking and acquiring sign off for work before despatching to client
• To establish close working relationships with each of the teams to best help support, guide and amplify the creative work

Role-specific professional and technical skills

• Strong and demonstrated experience through multiple brand touch points, including digital, retail.
• A strong desire to continually challenge, improve and grow creative talent within the business.
• Relevant client or agency experience.
• Demonstrable track record in delivering large-scale brand design programs, and wider communications and activation strategies.
• An excellent communicator who can articulate strategic thinking and creative concepts with equal impact.
• Able to think on their feet and make decisions; someone who finds solutions rather than simply reports problems.
• Highly organised, highly professional, and able to communicate at all levels within client business.
• Absorb and consolidate multiple briefs on multiple brands, and build plans for the future development for the brand.
• A highly capable, credible client presence, to form trusting client partnerships.
• A people-person; able to delegate and get a job done.
• Good knowledge across brand communications production, event production, digital, video/film production and sales promotion.
• Strong knowledge of creative technical programs in order that they can advise client team on timings, relevance and production scope
• Ambitious with a keen desire to learn. Enthusiastic, interested, motivated.

Team player, able to take instruction and guidance and willing to train the team around them whether direct reports or not.

Our values mean that our people are not afraid to focus on the user of the brand to apply true insight and creativity, always with an eye towards helping brand builders achieve their business goals.

We relish and embrace challenges, but we never forget that our work has to work.

We look for opportunities to explore and evolve. Not only do we always ask ‘why?’ but also, ‘why not?’

Our best work will always be ahead of us.

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Job description

Job Summary: Strategy Director

A senior manager and consultant who leads the strategy practice and manages the JHB strategy team. Is responsible for growing the Strategy capability and working with the MD to build the reputation of Brand Union as a strategic brand consultancy.

Key Responsibilities & Accountabilities

• Strategy
• Develop and communicate ground-breaking and effective branding strategies and concepts
• Champion of our brand philosophy and ideas within the agency and to clients
• Take a ‘brand-led’ perspective on the engagement challenge and also be comfortable working across discipline
• Help monitor and improve the quality of strategic output of the agency
• Facilitates senior executive workshops and meetings, and presents at Board level
• Assists in new business opportunities and initial scoping and pitch presentations/strategy
• Creativity
• Develop game-changing creative ideas and briefs to transform client brands and businesses
• Work with Creative Directors and Client Directors to ensure a high quality of output
• Thought Leadership
• Lead the development of the BU strategy offer in collaboration with the Cape Town Strategy Director
• Write regularly to demonstrate leadership – white papers, press articles, etc, supporting marketing and PR
• Share knowledge and insights through knowledge sharing and best practice case studies and deploy new tools and methodologies
• Stay abreast of latest published thinking on branding, market based trends, brand successes, failures and industry business activity (mergers, acquisitions, opportunities)
• Relationships
• Senior client contact point who forms long term client relationships and seeks opportunities to develop farming initiatives
• Ensure regular upward communication to Exec Strategy Director and other management
• Management
• Guide, motivate, mentor and direct team members ensuring their performance and development are managed using the performance review process
• Manage large multi-faceted projects. Monitor time and budget expenditure to ensure programmes remain within agreed targets and provide regular upward reports
• Facilitate internal learning and development through training and workshops (for strategy and across functions)
• Encourage learning and sharing of ideas across the network
• Role-specific professional and technical skills
• Sophisticated understanding of all branding deliverables and associated disciplines such as positioning, architecture, messaging, segmentation, research, engagement and interaction
• Ability to grow, engage and maintain critical client and internal relationships
• Able to persuasively present and discuss at CEO/Executive/Board level and to build consensus around a brand concept within client organizations
• Proven ability to manage, grow and deploy resources
• Appreciation of chargeability and how this links to agency profitability
• High level networking ability
• Strong business writing skills
• Level of experience
• Extensive experience in similar role client or agency or client side marketing
• Brand strategy and design experience essential
• Demonstrated leadership and ability to grow client business in another agency environment
• Proven people management skills and leadership experience

Educated to degree level or equivalent

Job Behaviors

These are the behaviours expected for this role:

• Leading from the front: Champion positive change by creating a sense of direction and purpose for your team. Encouraging a sense of mutual responsibility and encouraging high performance.
• Being a mentor: Continually looking to improve, monitor and plan around individual performance within the group account by building their skills and strengths, and teaching the team how to overcome their weaknesses for optimum career development.
• Showing interest: Express interest in your team’s well being from a career and personal perspective ensuring that you understand personal diversity which influence their opinions, circumstances and emotional well being.
• Work with agility: Being able to adapt your approach and leadership style to best suit the situation at hand, and ensuring a timely response.
• Continually learning: Encourage group account and personal learning. Group account and category knowledge is essential in this role with regards to the business strategy and imperatives. Keep learning and developing new skills and trends by participate in professional seminars, reading relevant research and insights, doing own desktop research.
• Effective communication: Persuade and influence others using logic and reason. Negotiation your way to find and express solutions for broad and complex issues.
• Client centric views: Ensuring that all decisions and executions are based around building a lasting partnership with the client and taking personal responsibility for improving and correcting customer service problems and eliminate underlying problems. Take extraordinary steps to retain and grow these relationships.
• Collaborating: Develop a relationship with key stakeholders (Client Service Director and Exco) to achieve common goals for the agency (policy, process, methodology, targets).
• Fair in response: In all you do, be fair and honest with regards to appraisals, assessments and making team members accountable for their performance. Encourage other’s ideas and views.