Group Creative Director

The Group Creative Director functions as a senior representative of the agency on a given piece of business, group, or discipline. He/she is responsible for developing close relationships with top client management as well as leading copywriting for the client or team. This role bears final responsibility for the agency’s creative recommendations and performance and, together with the agency’s Account staff, is responsible for its advertising product.

The Group Creative Director reports to the Executive Creative Director and leads people and projects while also formulating and executing concepts of his/her own.

MAJOR RESPONSIBILITIES

The Group Creative Director partners with Account and Strategy teams in developing overall project strategy, articulating insights into actionable concepts.

• Leadership – Act as and be perceived as the concept and copywriting expert by client and agency alike.
• Financial Responsibility – Assists with profitable creative group management, which includes staff utilization, freelance usage and expense oversight.
• Client Relationship – Creates a positive, engaging relationship leading clients through concepts that result in the best work for the client and agency.
• Drives agency culture to think and dream bigger.
• Management that demonstrates a “manage by doing” style, enabling the agency to be its best – best work, most efficient, most engaged.

Specific Creative Responsibility:

The Group Creative Director is responsible for concepting and creative on assigned accounts.

• Develop concepts that reflect strategy; are appropriate for the brand/product personality and are unique to the category and client.
• Establish standards and lead effort to continuously improve agencies creative quality
• Review, edit and refine creative from concept to production to ensure a top quality end product
• Is an expert in all types of advertising and communication including digital, social media, and emerging technology
• Work seamlessly with team members to ensure conceptual/tonal integrity for the final product
• Lead creative presentations to clients and/or internal creative reviews and coaches team members to grow in their presentation and persuasion skills
• Remain current with and communicate industry trends and techniques

Internal Agency Responsibilities:

The Group Creative Director has specific internal agency responsibilities that set an example for the entire account group.

• Training

-Provide structured and unstructured training opportunities for members of the creative group to learn the next level up and what they need to achieve to be successful.

-Direct and guide fellow creatives in brainstorming and development, providing clear/objective critiques during the process.

• Utilization of Agency Resources – Effectively manage the agency’s resources and relationships with other departments in the agency.
• Administration – Adhere to and support agency/departmental policies and systems and assist the ECD in providing leadership within the creative department.

Agency Corporate Responsibilities:

The Group Creative Director has a responsibility to the corporation as a whole.

• Agency Representative in the Community – Member of clubs and organizations and propagation of the business and advertising communities.
• Agency Growth – Help pursue new business opportunities with prospective clients and identify growth opportunities with current clients.
• Agency Commitment – Demonstrate loyalty to the agency and undertake non-account-related agency tasks/functions for the good of the agency.
• Agency Culture – Reflection of agency core values: curious, creative and courageous in all work done

-Curious-We never stop learning or exploring

-Creative-We light up the room with engaging imagination

-Courageous-We are fearless and are up for any challenge

Required/Desired Qualifications based on Director-level experience:

• 15+ years in the industry
• Copywriter
• Broad category and creative expertise
• 5+ years of experience managing teams

Yamamoto