Associate Director, Creative Strategy

Day-to-Day Scope

• Portfolio: 2–3 client accounts, balanced across client size and service mix to build depth across different brand challenges and content models.
• Team: Partner closely with Social Producers and cross-functional staff — serving as the creative strategic lead who translates ideation and conceptualization into clear, executable direction.
• Cadence: Always-on content programs with reactive moments and campaign work layered in. Primary rhythm is strategic output — briefs, platforms, concepts, and frameworks — that keeps the production engine moving with creative purpose.
• Ownership: Own the creative strategy and conceptual quality for your assigned accounts, and the day-to-day creative relationship with those clients.
• Cross-portfolio creative vision and department-level creative leadership sit at the Director level and above.

What You'll Do Here

• Create brand-level creative platforms, campaign concepts, and content systems for assigned accounts — grounded in audience insight, cultural relevance, and platform intelligence.
• Translate brand objectives, business goals, and social data into sharp creative briefs and conceptual territories that inspire original, high-performing work.
• Synthesize performance data, platform trends, and social signals into continuously evolving creative direction — ensuring strategy is sharpened by what the audience is actually responding to.
• Serve as the conceptual pressure-test for ideas before they enter production — ensuring concepts are grounded in social platform reality and built to perform, not just to win in a deck.
• Bring creative strategic recommendations to Director-level leadership for alignment, input, and integration into broader portfolio and agency direction.
• Develop original, data-backed creative concepts and campaigns for assigned accounts.
• Build and evolve recurring content frameworks, storytelling systems, and creative properties that give assigned brands a consistent, recognizable identity in the feed.
• Identify reactive opportunities in culture and on-platform in real time — and develop creative concepts that allow the team to act on them inside the window.
• Design creative that invites participation and seeds community, not just consumption.
• Partner closely with Social Producers to translate fully developed creative concepts and strategic direction into best-in-class campaign and content delivery.
• Provide direction to produce clear, thorough creative briefs and conceptual guidance that allow Social Producers, creators, editors, and designers to execute with confidence and without ambiguity.
• Maintain an active creative relationship throughout the production process — serving as the strategic and conceptual point of escalation when execution decisions require creative judgment.
• Contribute to creative frameworks and repeatable ideation structures that allow the production team to ship consistently without sacrificing originality or brand integrity.
• Build and evolve the creative identity of assigned brands on social — ensuring strategic consistency across always-on content, campaigns, and reactive moments.
• Develop storytelling frameworks and recurring creative properties that audiences return to and that strengthen brand equity over time.
• Apply a social-first creative philosophy that puts platform behavior, audience psychology, and cultural context at the center of every concept.
• Integrate AI tools into your creative strategy workflow — identifying where they create the most leverage across research, ideation, concept development, and iteration.
• Stay current on emerging AI capabilities and bring useful, practical applications back to the team and the work.
• Serve as the day-to-day creative strategic contact for assigned clients — presenting strategy and concepts with conviction and translating ambitious ideas into language that earns buy-in.
• Maintain strong working relationships across internal strategy, business intelligence, social production, and account teams to ensure creative strategy is connected to broader client objectives.
• Operate in close partnership with Director-level leadership — keeping them informed, escalating when needed, and actively developing the client instincts and strategic range that build toward senior leadership.
• Contribute to the development of work that earns industry recognition — awards, case studies, and category-defining moments that elevate Viral Nation’s creative profile.

What You'll Need to Have

• 6-8 years of experience in social-first creative strategy, with a demonstrated track record of developing data-backed creative concepts and campaigns for mid-to-large scale brands.
• Proven ability to develop and sustain a brand’s creative platform across multiple campaign cycles — not just one-off executions.
• A portfolio of original, platform-native creative concepts and campaigns with context on strategic rationale and measurable performance outcomes.
• Deep platform fluency: a sharp, current point of view on what’s resonating across TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, and emerging platforms, and a sense of where things are headed.
• Strong ability to translate creative strategy into clear, actionable briefs that production teams can execute against at pace.
• Solid command of social performance data and the ability to use insights to sharpen creative direction over time.
• Comfort and curiosity with AI tools in creative workflows, and an orientation toward integrating them more deeply across ideation and strategy.
• Confident communication and presentation skills, with the ability to make ambitious ideas land with clients and internal stakeholders.
• Experience partnering with producers, creators, videographers, editors, and designers in fast-paced content environments.