Associate Director, Brand Strategy (Contract)

About the role

This is a 2-month short-term contract role based in the New York City office with the potential for future full-time employment. Remote candidates with exceptional qualifications may be considered. The Associate Director, Brand Strategy leads key deliverables, projects, and teammates within MBLM’s consulting discipline, serving as a hands-on contributor who creates agency strategy outputs and solves client challenges.

MBLM is the Brand Intimacy Agency, dedicated to creating ultimate brand relationships that drive performance, engagement, and return. Our executives are trailblazers who have built and run some of the world’s largest marketing and branding firms. We work across disciplines and geographies to create award-winning work spanning an incredible diversity of industries.

Responsibilities

• Own the production of strategic and writing work products, including desktop research and analysis, defining themes and concepts, writing strategic positioning frameworks, and writing creative market-ready copy that adopts brand voice and strategy to communicate.
• Think and work in a structured way: define information needs from client briefs, seek out data and research, use those inputs to create insights, understand client organization and issues, and write actionable solutions.
• Simplify complex information and organize it into logical constructs and systems, including understanding clients’ complex product portfolios for marketing to stakeholders.
• In coordination with discipline and account leads, deliver work that is creative, on-brief, on-time, and truly understands and solves client challenges.
• Present effectively to clients, handle difficult questions, and participate in or run strategy portions of client sessions.
• Interface with client contacts on key strategic issues, establishing credibility and trusted relationships.
• Pursue deep understanding of the client’s businesses and be viewed as a knowledge expert.
• Adopt MBLM’s strategy processes and work with the partner leading strategy to seek feedback, revise work iteratively, and pursue a standard of creative and strategic excellence.
• Brainstorm names, construct frameworks, and develop brand campaign concepts, brand research, thought leadership approaches, and writing for brand touchpoints (e.g., corporate websites, marketing videos).

Requirements

• Six or more years of experience in brand strategy, agency, or in-house at a major B2B company with an exceptional brand.
• Expert-level command of the English language, with excellent writing and speaking skills.
• An analytical and inquisitive mindset with curiosity about the industries we work with.
• Proven experience with brand (not campaign) strategy for B2B and B2B2C brands.
• Demonstrated ability to conduct desktop research and assessments to analyze brands and their communications, identifying areas of parity and opportunity.
• Demonstrated ability to create differentiated and creatively powerful foundational brand strategy for B2B brands (e.g., brand promises, value propositions, positioning statements, brand narratives).
• Demonstrated ability to define tone of voice for a B2B brand, create messaging frameworks, and write creative brand messaging for touchpoints.
• Demonstrated ability to create compelling campaign themes and taglines.
• Ability to adopt new AI-native workflows and tools to augment work processes.
• Attention to detail and rigorous dedication to quality control across all output.
• Leadership and teamwork skills to collaborate with people across all MBLM disciplines and levels.
• Ability to effectively multitask and manage time pressures while keeping team members informed.
• Fosters autonomy in their role while adhering to the highest standards of quality.
• Expert-level skills with the Apple iWork and Microsoft Office suites.

Pay

The total pay for this project will be calculated based on an annual salary range of $100,000–$135,000, adjusted for experience and other factors, and divided by the total contract period.