Director, Strategy, One Horizon (Temp)

Job Description

Who We Are   

ONE (formerly 305WW) is Horizon Media’s full-service creative agency, named Best Small Agency of the Year (MUSE) three times in a row. The agency’s mission is to elevate brands from short-lived fame to long-lasting impact by going to culture first to find one meaning. ONE full-service offering spans Brand Identity & Strategy, Comms Planning, Creative Concept through Development, and Account Leadership. Additional specialized areas of expertise include Multicultural and Audio/Podcasts. The agency has a growing roster of iconic brands from Materne North America, United Health Care, Blue Triton Brands, Sleep Number Corporation, and Kohl’s, among others. The agency is headquartered in New York.  

What You’ll Do 

70% Audience Insight and Communications Planning  

20% Thought Leadership  

10% New Business Development 

What You’ll Do  

The Strategy Director helps to represent the consumer, brand, and business. You’ll have the opportunity to contribute across a diverse array of strategic areas, including delivering research, insights, strategic grounding, and creative development. This role works closely with the agency's strategic lead and will be a significant support partner in developing the vision of the department’s practice.  

Core Responsibilities:  

Strategic Acumen 

You see the big picture and help develop strategic initiatives towards inspired solutions. You have a passion for digging into a client’s business, understanding category and cultural trends, and providing insight into the competitive landscape. Working with your agency and client partners, you will be involved in positioning, platform, and messaging strategies that elevate and bring creative ideas into the world. 

Creative Storytelling & Inspiration 

You understand how to synthesize and distill data, research, and cultural trends into inspiring and unexpected creative briefs. Using the range of agency tools, collaborative ideation, and side-by-side partnership with creative teams, you’ll help to deliver insights that raise the bar for the creative work and unlock unexpected creative solutions. 

Research and Insights 

Support the development of research deliverables under the direction of a Planning Director. Conduct online research as directed and attend research interviews as appropriate. Contribute learning and insights based on research learning. 

Understanding how to use qualitative and quantitative research as the basis for a range of client deliverables. 

Analyzes qualitative and quantitative data, such as audience segmentation, competitive research, and market data, and translates that information into insights and strategies that will impact client brands. Builds out aspects of the strategy work. 

Tools: 

Core proficiency with software, tools, and templates as applicable to Brand Strategy. Often establishes templates that teams can reuse for efficiency. Collaboration/workshop tools e.g. Miro, Mural, Jamboard. Research tools and platforms include but are not limited to MRI/Simmons, Netbase, Helixa, Statista, You.gov, Kantar, etc. 

Leadership: 

Planning is a leadership position. You must bring a passion for what communication and creativity can achieve in the world. You’ll be empowered to contribute to intellectual products for the agency, and to develop your plus-up superpower that brings a little something unexpected to the planning department.  

Deliverables: 

Can lead the development of smaller-scale Brand Strategy deliverables with oversight and guidance, including deliverables such as:  

Segments, Personas, Journey Maps, Core brand strategy outputs: Value Proposition, Positioning, Benefit Ladders, Brand Core outputs, Strategy Foundation development, Journey Maps, Creative Briefs, Brand Foundations, Brand Identity Models, Cultural Narratives, reports/POVs from qualitative research, communication mapping, measurement plans. 

Qualifications & Experience 

• Bachelors required, preferably in a social / human-oriented field (e.g., Sociology, Psychology, Anthropology, etc.) or communication/marketing (e.g., Integrated Marketing, Brand Planning, etc.). A master’s degree or higher is desirable. 

• Work experience of 6 t