Associate Creative Director, Copywriting

Strava; United States; Hybrid; USD 120,000 - 190,000; Full time

Job summary

Strava's Creative Team defines how the brand sounds across campaigns, social, paid media, and product. As Associate Creative Director, Copywriting, you will lead a small team of senior copywriters, own copy direction for major workstreams, and partner with the Executive Creative Director on strategy.

This player-coach role blends personal craft with leadership and marketing partnership to shape Strava's verbal identity, ensuring every word reinforces the brand and drives business outcomes.

Qualifications

• 10+ years experience in copywriting and creative concepting.
• Portfolio with exceptional craft across brand campaigns, social, and multi-format work.
• Proven experience upleveling a creative team, mentoring writers.
• Strategic mindset linking copy to brand and business impact.
• Deep understanding of platform‑native writing across TikTok, Meta, YouTube, email, and in‑product.

Responsibilities

• Own copy direction across brand campaigns, paid social, GTMs, and tentpole activations, from brief through final delivery.
• Directly manage 2–3 experienced copywriters and content creators: regular 1:1s, career development, project feedback, and performance conversations
• Partner with the ECD and Associate Creative Director, Visual Design to develop integrated campaign concepts, bringing a sharp verbal POV to early ideation and an editorial eye to execution
• Shape and evolve Strava's verbal identity: brand voice, tonal guidelines, headline frameworks, naming conventions, and how we talk across contexts and audiences
• Translate cultural signals, sport moments, and audience insights into ideas that connect, on social, in campaigns, in product moments, and beyond
• Write and direct copy across formats: long‑form and short‑form, social‑native, editorial, video scripts, app store copy, partnership creative, and more
• Present work to cross‑functional partners and leadership with clarity and conviction, connecting creative decisions to strategy and business outcomes
• Partner with external agencies and vendors to ensure voice and tone standards are upheld across all external creative production

Skills

Copywriting

Creative leadership

Brand voice development

Campaign concepting

Platform-native writing

Mentoring

Strategic mindset

Cross-functional collaboration

Editorial writing

Job description

About This Role

Strava's Creative Team is behind how the brand shows up in the world, across brand campaigns, GTMs, social, partnerships, product, paid media and beyond. Sitting inside Marketing, we work closely with Marketing, PMM, Growth, Brand, and Product to scale one of the most recognized active lifestyle brands globally. We're a high‑craft team that holds every piece of work to a high standard, and we do it with mission and purpose.

As the Associate Creative Director, Copywriting in Marketing Creative, you'll define how Strava sounds across everything we make, from brand campaigns and tentpole moments to paid social and product marketing. You'll directly manage a small team of experienced copywriters, own copy direction on major workstreams, partner closely with the Executive Creative Director on conceptual strategy, and shape the tonal and verbal identity of one of the world's most beloved active lifestyle brands. This is a player‑coach role: you're still a significant producer yourself, and you lead a team of experienced writers who expect creative credibility and direct feedback. The blend of sharp personal craft, people leadership, and marketing partnership is what makes this role distinct.

We follow a flexible hybrid model that translates to more than half of your time on‑site in our San Francisco or New York City office, three days per week.

What You'll Do

• Own copy direction across brand campaigns, paid social, GTMs, and tentpole activations, from brief through final delivery, ensuring every word earns attention and ladders up to Strava's brand strategy
• Directly manage 2–3 experienced copywriters and content creators: regular 1:1s, career development, project feedback, and performance conversations
• Partner with the ECD and Associate Creative Director, Visual Design to develop integrated campaign concepts, bringing a sharp verbal POV to early ideation and an editorial eye to execution
• Shape and evolve Strava's verbal identity: brand voice, tonal guidelines, headline frameworks, naming conventions, and how we talk across contexts and audiences
• Translate cultural signals, sport moments, and audience insights into ideas that connect, on social, in campaigns, in product moments, and beyond
• Write and direct copy across formats: long‑form and short‑form, social‑native, editorial, video scripts, app store copy, partnership creative, and more
• Present work to cross‑functional partners and leadership with clarity and conviction, connecting creative decisions to strategy and business outcomes
• Partner with external agencies and vendors to ensure voice and tone standards are upheld across all external creative production

What You'll Bring to the Team

• 10+ years experience of substantial experience in copywriting and creative concepting, with a background spanning both agency and in‑house environments.
• A portfolio with exceptional craft across brand campaigns, social, and multi‑format work, writing that's conceptually strong, tonally specific, and built for how people actually read
• Proven experience upleveling a creative team, you've managed experienced copywriters with a genuine standard for what great looks like, and you enable your teams to grow and develop through successful mentorship
• A strategic mindset: you can develop a campaign concept as fluently as you can write the headline, and you connect every copy decision to brand and business impact
• Deep understanding of platform‑native writing; you know how voice adapts across TikTok, Meta, YouTube, email, and in‑product, and why it matters
• Experience developing and stewarding brand voice and tone frameworks, not just applying them
• Comfort with ambiguity and pace: you've built in fast‑moving environments and you're energized by the challenge of producing great work quickly and at scale
• Experience collaborating with visual designers and art directors in integrated concepting; you think in campaigns, not just copy
• Success record of mentoring and developing creative team members in their craft and grow to the next level

Strava is an equal opportunity employer. In keeping with the values of Strava, we make all employment decisions including hiring, evaluation, termination, promotional and training opportunities, without regard to race, religion, color, sex, age, national origin, ancestry, sexual orientation, physical handicap, mental disability, medical condition, disability, gender or identity or expression, pregnancy or pregnancy‑related condition, marital status, height and/or weight.

We will ensure that individuals with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodation to participate in the job application or interview process, to perform essential job functions, and to receive other benefits and privileges of employment. Please contact us to request accommodation.