Senior Creative Director

Summary of Position Purpose

The Senior Creative Director is responsible for building the creative vision of our Brands and maintaining cohesive and thematic brand styles. Oversees the entire creative process that includes output from the graphic/packaging designers, copywriters, photographers, video managers and collaborate with the marketing team to produce advertising content, digital assets (product & lifestyle photos, videos, infographics, etc), in-store merchandising, tradeshow and presentation assets. Works collaboratively with marketing, category teams and sales teams to develop communication assets and play an integral role in the commercialization of new products (including retailer and channel specific SMUs). In short, they serve as the bridge between the business and the creative team; they partner with internal clients (sales, NPD, Category, Marketing…) to understand objectives, which they then translate into actionable direction for the creative team.

This individual contributes to the development of the creative strategy for all brands within the segments across products, collateral, and communication. They are the key owner of ensuring consistent and on-brand creative across products, collateral, and communication. They will be a central point of connection between Category Management, New Product Development and Design teams ensuring that the brand strategy is executed through creative elements.

Through their team, this person will be in charge of creating outstanding packaging designs that surprise and delight and evolve brand codes over time. This leader will have equal responsibility in creating designs and guiding / inspiring the team. They will partner with packaging development, production, and brand teams to bring ideas to life – owning the graphical and visual execution of products and collaborating on structures, colors and other initiatives.

KEY DUTIES

Lead and manage a team of creatives (design, photography, video and copy), providing guidance and direction to ensure the timely delivery of high-quality packaging, displays, assets, collateral, and design.

Partner closely with category, marketing and design team to achieve the highest level of quality for each project - understanding limitations due to timing, costs, etc.

Collaborate with Marketing Manager(s) to translate strategic campaigns into captivating content and collateral, that resonate with our target audiences, drive engagement, and achieve objectives.

As needed, manage and/or participate in creative agency partnerships to drive optimum output and highly productive relationships ensuring a level of excellence and value for the brand.

Drive conceptualization, design, and execution of impactful print and digital marketing campaigns and deliverables for product launches, retail displays, and promotional campaigns. Collaborate with the Digital / eCommerce Team to concept and execute appropriate and impactful visuals for content across digital channels, social media, .com.

Produces promotional materials by developing basic presentation approaches and directing layout, design, and copy writing.

Explore innovative packaging solutions through market research and trend analysis; enhance existing packaging by refining verbiage to better align with product specifications and buyer requests.

Drive, own, and iterate on the brand visual identity and photo direction for multi-channel campaigns that touch all areas of the customer journey-including site experience, ecommerce, email marketing, digital advertising, video, social and more.

Execute environmental event design for industry events, trade shows, and internal brand events and meetings, when requested

Key Responsibilities

Responsible for overseeing the creative execution of the creative team (including ACGI and Highlite China Team) and ensures quality of creative work and product meets or exceeds stakeholder requirements.

Responsible for application of a cohesive, creative strategy based on the business goals for synergy across all touch points, for consistent messaging. This includes Brand voice, tone, look, and feel, across products, as well as collateral and communications.

Owns and delivers brand playbooks and toolkits which feeds strategy for both the brand and sales playbook inclusive, not only Creative, but business strategy.

Evaluate resource allocation, making informed decisions on the utilization of internal resources versus agency support to optimize project delivery. Determines and monitors production schedules and provides work direction to staff.

Collaborates with Category Management, Marketing and Sales to keep up to date on all research, market dynamics, customer, trends, shopper, insights to inform strategic innovation.

Serves as an advisor for creative in partnership with marketing team for .com, digital, influencer and PR.

Create and enforce operational processes, rules, and procedures across team to ensure stakeholders receive optimal service levels and top-quality outputs.

Guides team on project prioritization according to business stakeholders’ requirements.

Expert in building trust and influence cross-functionally with Design, Category Management, Marketing Sales and NPD.

Key Requirements and Attributes

Multi-disciplinary designer with 10+ years of overall experience in consumer products; packaging design and ad campaign development experience required; experience in digital design, social, or creative space preferred.

Demonstrable management experience leading and managing designers, copywriters, photographers, and videographers with a track record of delivering high-quality designs and digital assets on time and within budget; 3+ years’ experience in remote/hybrid environment preferred

Bachelor’s Degree in Graphic Design, Art Direction, Visual Communication or design-related equivalent

Advanced/Expert Apple computer skills in Adobe Creative Cloud Suite, with a specialty within Illustrator, Photoshop, and InDesign, Microsoft Excel, Powerpoint

Proficiency in KeyShot, Shapr3D or other 3D rendering tools

Experienced in measuring, tracking KPI’s for self and team, and interprets data well and can define its impact.

Understands new product development, and product innovation, at the manufacturing and cost level, as well as the creative process; proficiency collaborating with off-shore manufacturing partners.

Understands and supports application of creative elements of advertising and promotion.

Problem solver, capable of driving cross functional partners to creative and effective solutions.

Ability to look ahead and plan for external vendor / freelance support as needed

Ability to quickly generate concepts and visually communicate those ideas with renderings and/or comps

Must be a self-starter, comfortable working in a fast-paced entrepreneurial environment, organized, detail oriented, collaborative and flexible

Effectively prioritize multiple projects while simultaneously handling demands and changes

Excellent writing and communications experience