Cox Ideabar, an integrated brand, creative, and media marketing center for creativity, is seeking a
Director,
Brand and Creative Strategy to shape powerful brand stories for the Cox family of brands and select partners.
Our ideal candidate is a strategic leader who will define long-term brand vision, architecture, and positioning - ensuring strategies align with business goals and inspire world-class creative and media execution. You challenge assumptions, reframe problems, uncover white space and cultural tension and establish sound, strategic direction that leads to bold, emotionally resonant creative opportunities.
A true generalist at heart, you blend left-brain discipline and right-brain imagination - part brand architect, part strategic storyteller. You thrive on solving enterprise-level brand and communication challenges, distilling business, audience and cultural insights into bold, clear strategic direction that clarifies a brand's role in the market and guides its evolution over time.
At the intersection of insight, innovation, and culturally attuned storytelling, you'll lead strategic development for our most visible and multifaceted client initiatives. From foundational brand strategy to campaign platforms and high-impact marketing executions, you'll guide work that spans design, video, experiential, and integrated campaigns.
What You'll Do:
- Define and guide the brand strategy discipline across a diverse portfolio of Cox businesses and partners - shaping positioning, brand architecture, portfolio strategy, and narrative frameworks. The Director will manage the strategic development of brand initiatives for new acquisitions from the ground up and drive the evolution of existing brands - such as Cox Enterprises - through periods of transformation, including post-merger integration and future growth initiatives.
- Partner with account management and clients to develop a deep understanding of brand goals, competitive landscapes, and business challenges - building strategic trust that leads to sharper briefs, stronger alignment, and creative work that delivers measurable business impact. These partnerships create space for insight-driven marketing campaigns that resonate deeply and drive meaningful organizational outcomes.
- Identify and articulate creative opportunities across diverse strategic functions, including:
- Research and insights - uncovering new audience insights that lead to a shift in brand messaging or campaign tone.
- Brand positioning and narrative development - repositioning a legacy brand to better reflect its evolving purpose or role in the market.
- Design and visual strategy - refreshing visual identity elements to signal a strategic shift.
- Naming (brands, products, services) - developing a naming system that clarifies product hierarchy and improves customer understanding.
- Audience-specific messaging frameworks - creating modular messaging frameworks that allow for personalization across audience segments while maintaining brand consistency.
- Campaign big idea development - building a campaign platform rooted in cultural relevance or emotional resonance - such as tapping into a social tension or shared value that aligns with the brand's purpose.
- Lead the development of compelling briefs that serve as springboards for creativity and execution, ensuring alignment between client goals, creative ambition, and audience needs all while ensuring they ladder back to long-term brand strategy.
- Lead audience segmentation and behavioral insight development to ensure strategies are deeply informed by customer needs and market realities translating these insights into actionable brand roadmaps, positioning statements, messaging frameworks, and value propositions.
- Collaborate closely with cross-disciplinary teams - creative, design, accounts, media, project management, and production - to guide strategic thinking from inception through delivery.
- Serve as a strategic thought partner to clients, proactively identifying opportunities to elevate their brand positioning, sharpen campaign narratives, and align creative efforts with broader business objectives. This includes leading brand discovery sessions, synthesizing market and audience insights, and translating complex challenges into actionable brand strategies that drive measurable impact.
- Develop strategic presentations and content that sell ideas clearly, compellingly, and persuasively to both internal and external stakeholders.
- Drive business growth by surfacing untapped brand and campaign opportunities, contributing to organic growth and new business initiatives through strategic insight, relationship development, and thought leadership.
- Design and lead strategic workshops and ideation sessions with cross-functional partners, including the development of session frameworks, stimulus materials, and facilitation plans that drive alignment, unlock new thinking, and accelerate decision-making around brand and campaign strategy.
What You Bring:
- Creative instincts and systems thinking - you connect dots, recognize patterns, and shape ideas that are both grounded and visionary.
- Cultural fluency and creative sensibility - you identify and leverage cultural conversations to keep brands relevant and differentiated and possess the ability to guide creative teams with insight-driven direction.
- Strategic versatility - you're equally comfortable defining brand positioning, crafting brand architectures, naming new services, or distilling campaign strategy into compelling presentations.
- Marketing acumen - you bring a strong grasp of brand fundamentals and stay ahead of emerging trends in media, digital, and consumer behavior.
- Clear, compelling communication - you make the complex simple and the abstract tangible through strong storytelling and presentation skills.
- Collaborative mindset - you thrive in cross-functional teams, rolling up your sleeves alongside creatives, researchers, and account leads to develop new strategic framework approaches, channels or initiatives.
- Adaptability and focus - you manage multiple projects and shifting priorities without sacrificing clarity or quality.
- Strategic leadership - you build trust, solve problems, and guide partners toward bold, effective solutions that shift perception and influence behavior. While an independent contributor on paper, you can lead teams and have experience to back it up.
Qualifications:
- Bachelor's degree in a related discipline and 10 years' experience in strategic or creative leadership roles across brand, agency, or consultancy environments. The right candidate could also have a different combination, such as a master's degree and 8 years' experience; a Ph.D. or 5 years' experience in a related field; or 14 years' experience in a related field.
- Familiarity with B2C and B2B marketing.
- Familiarity with enterprise-level branding and campaign work.
Preferred Qualifications:
- Experience in automotive and environmental marketing.
- 3+ years of people management experience.
USD 144,900.00 - 241,500.00 per year
Compensation:
Compensation includes a base salary of $144,900.00 - $241,500.00. The base salary may vary within the anticipated base pay range based on factors such as the ultimate location of the position and the selected candidate's knowledge, skills, and abilities. Position may be eligible for additional compensation that may include an incentive program.
Benefits:
The Company offers eligible employees the flexibility to take as much vacation with pay as they deem consistent with their duties, the company's needs, and its obligations; seven paid holidays throughout the calendar year; and up to 160 hours of paid wellness annually for their own wellness or that of family members. Employees are also eligible for additional paid time off in the form of bereavement leave, time off to vote, jury duty leave, volunteer time off, military leave, and parental leave.
Applicants must currently be authorized to work in the United States for any employer without current or future sponsorship.
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Cox
$144,900.00 - $241,500.00 / yr
parental leave, paid time off, paid holidays
Oct 11, 2025