Head of Creative (Creative Director) - Marketing Agency

About the Role

This role sits at the intersection of brand strategy, creative leadership, and team development. You are the creative authority at Snapshot, responsible for setting the standard for how our clients communicate, connect, and stand apart in their markets. You lead with messaging first. You understand that in an era of AI-generated everything, the most valuable creative asset a brand has is a distinct, ownable voice, and you know how to find it, protect it, and scale it across channels. You oversee the full creative operation, including Art Directors, designers, copywriters, and the production team. You are comfortable concepting a large integrated campaign and rolling up your sleeves on a tight-budget project that demands creativity over production. You present with confidence, defend your work with conviction, and know how to communicate what the work means and why it matters to clients, to directors, and to the team building it. This is not a design role. It is a creative leadership role, and the person who fills it will shape how Snapshot's clients tell their stories for years to come.

What Sets You Apart

• You think in ideas before you think in executions.
• You know that a great brief is half the work, and that a strong point of view is the difference between creative that converts and creative that blends in.
• Deep expertise in copywriting, brand voice, and messaging strategy.
• Fluent in how AI and LLMs are changing creative work, and clear-eyed about when to use them and when not to.
• Proven ability to lead creative teams across multiple disciplines and workstreams.
• Strong conceptual range, from large integrated campaigns to small-budget projects that still demand a real idea.
• Comfortable presenting to any audience and defending creative decisions under pressure.
• Skilled at breaking down silos between creative and digital so campaigns are built as one unit.
• A developer of people, not just a producer of work.

Responsibilities

Creative Strategy & Brand Voice

• Develop and own messaging strategy and brand voice for key clients, ensuring distinct and ownable positioning in their markets.
• Build and maintain brand voice guides, copy frameworks, and messaging hierarchies the team can execute against consistently.
• Stay ahead of how AI is changing content creation and copywriting, and bring a clear point of view on how Snapshot and its clients should respond.
• Use LLMs and AI writing tools with fluency, training and prompting them to produce on-brand output at scale without losing voice specificity.
• Establish team-wide standards for how AI is used in the creative process, including when it accelerates work and when it undermines it.
• Push every project, regardless of budget, toward a clear creative idea rather than a generic execution.

Creative Leadership & Direction

• Lead concept development across campaigns, brands, and content programs spanning digital, social, video, web, animation, and print.
• Provide clear, direct creative direction at every stage of a project, from brief to final delivery.
• Partner closely with Art Directors on design execution while maintaining ownership of the overall creative vision and messaging.
• Review all major creative before it goes to clients, ensuring quality, strategy alignment, and brand consistency.
• Lead creative presentations and contribute meaningfully to pitches and new business efforts.
• Balance creative ambition with the operational realities of scope, budget, and timeline.

Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Break down silos between Creative, Digital, and Account teams so integrated campaigns are built as one unit, not handed off sequentially.
• Partner with the Digital Director to ensure creative and performance thinking inform each other from the start of every campaign.
• Collaborate with Account leadership to understand client goals deeply enough to push back when the brief is wrong and elevate the work when it is right.
• Bring creative thinking into business development conversations and pitch environments.

Snapshot Brand Ownership

• Own the strategy, creative direction, and execution of Snapshot's brand across all external touchpoints, including the website, case studies, capabilities decks, marketing materials, and social presence.
• Ensure Snapshot's brand shows up with the same level of craft and strategic thinking we bring to our clients, because how we market ourselves is a direct reflection of the work we sell.
• Lead the development and maintenance of Snapshot's case study library, working with Account and Digital teams to capture results, tell the story, and keep the portfolio current.
• Own the agency website from a creative and messaging standpoint, partnering with Development to ensure it accurately represents who Snapshot is and what we do today.
• Build and maintain brand standards, templates, and asset libraries that give the internal team what they need to represent Snapshot consistently across every context.
• Own Snapshot's brand internally, ensuring all team members are using approved, up-to-date materials and that nothing goes out the door, or gets shared internally, that is off-brand or outdated.
• Identify gaps in Snapshot's marketing presence and bring forward a clear plan to close them, whether that is new case studies, refreshed positioning, updated collateral, or a stronger social voice.
• Treat Snapshot as a client, bringing the same rigor, creative ambition, and strategic thinking to our own brand that you bring to the accounts you lead.

Team Development

• Lead, coach, and develop Art Directors, copywriters, and creative staff with consistent feedback and high standards.
• Build individual development plans that challenge team members and create a path forward for high performers.
• Foster a creative culture where big ideas are encouraged, accountability is the norm, and quality is non-negotiable.
• Manage team capacity, workload distribution, and resource planning in partnership with Project Management.

Requirements

• 10+ years of creative experience with significant leadership responsibility in an agency environment.
• A portfolio that demonstrates strong concept-driven thinking and messaging craft, not just visual execution.
• Deep expertise in copywriting, brand voice development, and content strategy.
• Fluency with AI writing tools and LLMs, including practical experience using them in a professional creative workflow.
• Proven ability to lead large-scale integrated campaigns across digital, social, video, and traditional channels.
• Experience managing creative teams and developing talent at multiple levels.
• Strong presentation skills and the confidence to defend creative decisions in front of any audience.
• The range to lead a large flagship campaign and a small-budget project with equal care and intention.
• Collaborative instincts and a track record of building productive relationships across Account, Digital, and PM teams.
• Strong understanding of how design and copy work together, even if design is not your primary discipline.