Creative Strategist Senior

USAA Life Insurance Company; San Antonio (TX); Hybrid; USD 90,000 - 130,000; Full time

Job summary

USAA Life Insurance Company is seeking a Senior Creative Strategist to translate business priorities and audience insights into creative strategies across channels, strengthening relevance, trust, and growth. You will develop clear briefs and partner with Marketing to tie creative decisions to member outcomes.

The role requires collaboration with in-house teams and agencies, applying insights and testing findings, and adhering to brand standards while embracing responsible AI practices.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree or 4 years of relevant education/experience.
• 7–8 years of experience in creative strategy or related field.
• Experience independently developing creative strategy for integrated marketing campaigns.
• Ability to translate audience research and business objectives into concise briefs and messaging recommendations.
• Experience collaborating with creative teams and agencies to resolve feedback.
• Experience applying audience insights, creative testing, and campaign performance findings to refine strategy and messaging.
• Knowledge of brand building and channel-specific storytelling across digital, social, video and other marketing channels.

Responsibilities

• Develops creative strategy for assigned campaigns and initiatives, translating objectives and audience priorities into focused creative recommendations.
• Applies understanding of the military community and brand platform to campaign-level strategy, messaging, and storytelling.
• Creates concise, actionable creative briefs defining business challenge, audience, desired response, core insight, messaging priorities, and guardrails.
• Partners with in-house teams and agencies from briefing through development, ensuring strategy is aligned with brand platform and audience needs.
• Refines campaign-level strategy and messaging using audience insights, testing results, and performance data.
• Ensures risk and compliance considerations are integrated into strategic work.

Skills

Creative strategy

Brand strategy

Account planning

Integrated marketing strategy

Stakeholder collaboration

Education

Bachelor's degree

4 years of relevant education/experience

Job description

Why USAA?

At USAA, our mission is to empower our members to achieve financial security through highly competitive products, exceptional service and trusted advice. We seek to be the #1 choice for the military community and their families.

Embrace a fulfilling career at USAA, where our core values - honesty, integrity, loyalty and service - define how we treat each other and our members. Be part of what truly makes us special and impactful.

We are proud to support active-duty military spouses. USAA roles may offer remote or hybrid flexibility for active-duty military spouses consistent with applicable policy and business needs.

The Opportunity

Our Creative Strategist Senior translates business priorities, audience insights, and USAA's brand strategy into compelling creative strategies that strengthen relevance, deepen trust, and drive growth. Connects the needs of prospective and existing members with distinctive storytelling across channels and the marketing journey. Develops clear, actionable creative briefs that align stakeholders and guide creative development. Partners across Marketing to connect creative decisions to meaningful member and business outcomes while reinforcing USAA's mission and a unified brand.

We offer a flexible work environment that requires an individual to be in the office 4 days per week. This position can be based in one of the following locations: San Antonio, TX, Plano, TX, Phoenix, AZ, Charlotte, NC, Colorado Springs, CO, and Tampa, FL.

Relocation assistance is not available for this position.

What you'll do:

• Develops creative strategy for assigned campaigns and initiatives, translating business objectives, audience priorities, and the master brand platform into focused creative recommendations.
• Applies USAA's understanding of the military community and the master brand platform to campaign-level strategy, messaging, and storytelling.
• Creates concise, actionable creative briefs that define the business challenge, audience, desired response, core insight, messaging priorities, and creative guardrails.
• Applies the master brand platform to campaign-level creative strategy and messaging, ensuring assigned initiatives reinforce a consistent and distinctive expression of USAA.
• Develops messaging and storytelling recommendations across acquisition, engagement, and retention, adapting recommendations to audience and channel needs.
• Clarifies requirements, consolidates stakeholder feedback, and confirms alignment before creative development.
• Partners closely with in-house creative teams and external agencies from briefing through development, representing the strategy, providing actionable feedback, and evaluating concepts against the approved brief, master brand platform, audience needs, and intended outcomes.
• Applies audience insights, creative testing findings, campaign performance, and other available evidence to refine campaign-level strategy, messaging and recommendations.
• Applies established strategic frameworks and emerging cultural, channel, and creative practices, including responsible AI use to improve the relevance, quality, and efficiency of strategic work.
• Resolves routine questions and escalates significant or conflicting direction promptly to the Lead Creative Strategist reduce avoidable back-and-forth and rework.
• Ensures risks associated with business activities are effectively identified, measured, monitored, and controlled in accordance with risk and compliance policies and procedures.

What you have:

• Bachelor's degree; OR 4 years of relevant education and/or experience.
• 7-8 years of experience in creative strategy, brand strategy, account planning, integrated marketing strategy, or a related discipline.
• Demonstrated experience independently developing creative strategy for integrated marketing campaigns.
• Demonstrated ability to translate audience research and business objectives into concise creative briefs and messaging recommendations that creative teams can execute.
• Experience collaborating with creative teams, cross-functional stakeholders and agencies to clarify direction and resolve feedback.
• Experience applying audience insights, creative testing, and campaign performance findings to refine campaign-level creative strategy and messaging.
• Knowledge of brand building, consumer behavior and channel-specific storytelling across digital, social, video and other marketing channels.
• Demonstrated ability to present strategic recommendations clearly and manage multiple assignments and deadlines.

What sets you apart:

• Connect business strategy to creative strategy
• Translate defined business objectives, audience needs and brand direction into a focused creative problem and actionable strategy for assigned initiatives.
• Find the insight that unlocks the work
• Connect available audience insights, cultural context and member needs to identify the human tension or truth most relevant to the assignment.
• Bring a clear strategic point of view
• Make and clearly articulat