Associate Director, Creative Strategy

As an Associate Director, Creative Strategy at Viral Nation, you are a rising creative strategist operating at the intersection of culture, data, and platform intelligence. You think sharply about how brands should show up on social — and you back that thinking with the briefs, concepts, and creative frameworks that bring it to life. You are a skilled generator of original ideas and a disciplined translator of strategy into work that performs.

You sit upstream of the content engine — developing brand-level creative platforms, campaign concepts, and content systems that are rooted in insight and built for the feed. You partner closely with Social Producers to ensure that creative vision translates into best-in-class execution, and you work in close collaboration with Director-level creative leadership to connect your account-level work to broader brand and agency strategy.

You are platform-native, data-literate, and creatively ambitious. You see emerging formats before they hit culture, you can tell the difference between a trend and a fad, and you know that on social media, the most powerful creative is born at the intersection of instinct and insight. This role is designed for someone ready to own their accounts deeply — and grow into the cross-portfolio, team, and agency responsibilities that define the Director level.

Day-to-Day Scope:

• Portfolio: 2–3 client accounts, balanced across client size and service mix to build depth across different brand challenges and content models.
• Team: You will partner closely with Social Producers and cross-functional staff — serving as the creative strategic lead who translates ideation and conceptualization into clear, executable direction. You do not carry direct reports at this level.
• Cadence: Always-on content programs with reactive moments and campaign work layered in. Your primary rhythm is strategic output — briefs, platforms, concepts, and frameworks — that keeps the production engine moving with creative purpose.
• Ownership: You own the creative strategy and conceptual quality for your assigned accounts, and the day-to-day creative relationship with those clients. Cross-portfolio creative vision and department-level creative leadership sit at the Director level and above.

What You'll Do Here:

Creative Strategy & Ideation

• Develop brand-level creative platforms, campaign concepts, and content systems for assigned accounts — grounded in audience insight, cultural relevance, and platform intelligence.
• Translate brand objectives, business goals, and social data into sharp creative briefs and conceptual territories that inspire original, high-performing work.
• Synthesize performance data, platform trends, and social signals into continuously evolving creative direction — ensuring strategy is sharpened by what the audience is actually responding to.
• Serve as the conceptual pressure-test for ideas before they enter production — ensuring concepts are grounded in social platform reality and built to perform, not just to win in a deck.
• Bring creative strategic recommendations to Director-level leadership for alignment, input, and integration into broader portfolio and agency direction.

Creative Conceptualization & Campaign Development

• Develop original, data-backed creative concepts and campaign platforms built to earn attention, drive measurable outcomes, and build brand equity on social media.
• Build and evolve recurring content frameworks, storytelling systems, and creative properties that give assigned brands a consistent, recognizable identity in the feed.
• Identify reactive opportunities in culture and on-platform in real time — and develop creative concepts that allow the team to act on them inside the window.
• Design creative that invites participation and seeds community,