Creative Strategist

DNA Recruit; Bedford; On-site; GBP 45,000 - 65,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Referral bonuses

Job summary

DNA Recruit is seeking a Creative Strategist to sit at the exact point where strategy becomes creative within a fast-growing B2B agency that works with leading food and drink brands. The briefs are rarely dull, spanning pubs, cafés, QSRs and hospitality groups.

You will turn insight and audience understanding into briefs and creative platforms, collaborating with strategists, creatives and client teams from the start of a project to shape thinking, not just polish the brief.

Qualifications

• Proven experience in creative strategy, planning or brand strategy.
• Experience taking projects from insight to brief, platform and campaign.
• Strong writing skills for briefs, narratives and territory names.
• Collaborative and able to run workshops with teams and clients.

Responsibilities

• Turn insight, audience understanding and propositions into clear, inspiring briefs.
• Find organising ideas, creative territories and platforms for campaigns.
• Build narratives, stories and messaging frameworks that simplify complex challenges.
• Lead ideation sessions and workshops.
• Sharpen ideas against the brief and protect the central thought.
• Help take creative platforms across channels, touchpoints and journeys.
• Contribute to new business opportunities and proposals.
• Provide a point of view on food, drink, hospitality trends to boost creativity.
• Improve briefing and collaboration so strategy and creative stay aligned from day one.

Skills

Creative strategy

Brand strategy

Planning

Creative development

Client workshops

Written communication

Job description

A fast-growing, award-winning B2B agency that works with some of the biggest food and drink brands in the world. They help those brands grow in the places people eat, drink, work, travel and socialise away from home. The strategy team is expanding and they now need a Creative Strategist to sit at the exact point where strategy becomes creative.

The briefs are rarely dull. One day it's how a brand wins with chefs. The next it's what makes people order differently in a pub, café or QSR, or how a big commercial opportunity becomes an idea people actually want to engage with.

Your job is to find the organising idea, creative territory or story that makes the strategy come alive. You'll take insight, audience understanding and propositions and turn them into briefs and creative platforms that give creative teams something exciting to work with.

This isn't an insight or market research role. It's about the idea.

You'll work with strategists, creatives and client teams from the start of a project, helping shape the thinking rather than arriving once the brief is fixed.

What you'll be doing

• Turning insight, audience understanding and strategic direction into clear, inspiring creative briefs
• Finding the organising ideas, creative territories and platforms that give campaigns a distinctive point of view
• Building narratives, stories and messaging frameworks that make complex challenges feel simple and easy to buy into
• Leading and contributing to ideation sessions and workshops
• Challenging and sharpening creative ideas against the brief, and protecting the central thought
• Helping take creative platforms across channels, touchpoints and customer journeys without losing what made the idea strong
• Getting stuck into briefs across the client base, from major campaigns and brand platforms to pitches and new propositions
• Bringing creative strategy thinking into the agency's own new business
• Contributing a point of view on what’s happening across food, drink, hospitality and Away From Home, to help build the agency’s creative reputation and thought leadership
• Helping the agency get better at briefing and collaborating, so strategy and creative feel connected from day one

Who this suits

You'll have proven experience in creative strategy, planning, brand strategy, creative development or a closely related agency-side role. You can show where your thinking has helped unlock or improve the creative work, and you've taken projects from insight and proposition through to creative brief, platform and campaign.

You'll be:

• A strategic thinker with a strong creative instinct, who can simplify complexity into a compelling idea
• A strong writer, whether that's a brief, a narrative, a territory name or the line that makes it all click
• Naturally curious, someone who notices things and makes connections
• A collaborator who builds ideas with other people rather than disappearing off to write the answer alone
• Happy to challenge and be challenged
• Commercially aware, with a good instinct for the difference between an interesting idea and one that works in the real world
• Confident presenting to clients and running workshops
• Interested in food, drink, people, brands and behaviour, and excited by briefs that go beyond traditional consumer advertising, from chefs and operators to pubs, cafés, restaurants and hospitality groups

Food, drink, hospitality, B2B or Away From Home experience is useful but not essential. An eye for visual detail and creative craft is a plus, even if you're not a designer.

Current titles might include Creative Strategist, Strategy Planner, Brand Strategist, Senior Planner, Campaign Strategist, Integrated Planner or Creative Planner. Titles vary, so if the work sounds like you, get in touch.

DNA is committed to promoting a diverse and inclusive community and welcomes applications from candidates of all backgrounds.

Although we try to respond to all applications, unfortunately, due to the high number we receive, we are unable to respond to all of those who are unsuccessful.

We offer up to £250 in vouchers for any referrals who pass their probationary period, so if you know anyone who might be interested please forward the link to the job advert to them.