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, not just consumption.

Production Partnership & Creative Translation

• Partner closely with Social Producers to translate fully developed creative concepts and strategic direction into best-in-class campaign and content delivery.
• Provide direction to produce clear, thorough creative briefs and conceptual guidance that allow Social Producers, creators, editors, and designers to execute with confidence and without ambiguity.
• Maintain an active creative relationship throughout the production process — serving as the strategic and conceptual point of escalation when execution decisions require creative judgment.
• Contribute to creative frameworks and repeatable ideation structures that allow the production team to ship consistently without sacrificing originality or brand integrity.

Brand & Community Building

• Build and evolve the creative identity of assigned brands on social — ensuring strategic consistency across always-on content, campaigns, and reactive moments.
• Develop storytelling frameworks and recurring creative properties that audiences return to and that strengthen brand equity over time.
• Apply a social-first creative philosophy that puts platform behavior, audience psychology, and cultural context at the center of every concept.

AI in the Creative Process

• Actively integrate AI tools into your creative strategy workflow — identifying where they create the most leverage across research, ideation, concept development, and iteration.
• Stay current on emerging AI capabilities and bring useful, practical applications back to the team and the work.

Client & Stakeholder Partnership

• Serve as the day-to-day creative strategic contact for assigned clients — presenting strategy and concepts with conviction and translating ambitious ideas into language that earns buy-in.
• Maintain strong working relationships across internal strategy, business intelligence, social production, and account teams to ensure creative strategy is connected to broader client objectives.
• Operate in close partnership with Director-level leadership — keeping them informed, escalating when needed, and actively developing the client instincts and strategic range that build toward senior leadership.

Innovation & Recognition

• Contribute to the development of work that earns industry recognition — awards, case studies, and category-defining moments that elevate Viral Nation’s creative profile.

What You'll Need to Have:

• 6-8 years of experience in social-first creative strategy, with a demonstrated track record of developing data-backed creative concepts and campaigns for mid-to-large scale brands.
• Proven ability to develop and sustain a brand’s creative platform across multiple campaign cycles — not just one-off executions.
• A portfolio of original, platform-native creative concepts and campaigns with context on strategic rationale and measurable performance outcomes.
• Deep platform fluency: a sharp, current point of view on what’s resonating across TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, and emerging platforms, and a sense of where things are headed.
• Strong ability to translate creative strategy into clear, actionable briefs that production teams can execute against at pace.
• Solid command of social performance data and the ability to use insights to sharpen creative direction over time.
• Comfort and curiosity with AI tools in creative workflows, and an orientation toward integrating them more deeply across ideation and strategy.
• Confident communication and presentation skills, with the ability to make ambitious ideas land with clients and internal stakeholders.
• Experience partnering with producers, creators, videographers, editors, and designers in fast-paced content environments.

Additional Considerations:

• Exposure to or involvement in award-winning or industry-recognized social creative work.
• Experience contributing to creative strategy for experiential or integrated campaigns.
• Background as a creator, strategist, or creative collaborator with hands-on content experience.

*Submission of a strong portfolio demonstrating a diverse range of strategy-led social media content, campaigns and/or projects is required with application.*