Senior Strategist/Strategy Director - TracyLocke

Overview

Role: Senior Strategist/Strategy Director

Location: Chicago, IL

Tracy-Locke is looking for a Senior Strategist/Strategy Director to join our team!

Our strategists are standard-bearers of strategic thought within the business. We proudly and fiercely represent the human perspective in the development of creative work. We use data and insight to focus energy on the areas of greatest impact. We are culture enthusiasts, data geeks, facilitators, and storytellers.

We are looking for a brilliant misfit, a unicorn with brains; one who relishes in being a brave strategic stalwart in helping generate award-winning, thought-provoking, behavior-changing, envy-generating, parental-pride-inducing commerce work that works; one who can deftly divine insights which spark ideas which, in turn, lead to experiences – amazing, effective, action-oriented, business-boosting experiences.

The right candidate for our Senior Strategist/Strategy Director role is versant in multiple aspects of strategic planning, a commerce and retail rock-star, a tireless champion of insights and provocations who prefers not to be pigeonholed as one particular type of strategist or thinker but would rather run head first at problems to solve using whatever tools necessary to solve them. We are looking for the right person who has a penchant for behavioral economics, psychology, sociology, data, retail, and unearthing unique consumer and shopper knowledge; one who has a passion for being a collaborator, trend spotter, creative muse, problem solver, storyteller, and good human being.

Responsibilities

• Make the creative product better and stronger with thoughtful briefings and thought leadership.
• Collaborate with creative and account leads to deliver work with excellence and identify growth opportunities.
• Apply proprietary strategic models with leadership support.
• Build the reputation of and demand for Planning on your team.
• Support the VP Strategist’s direction for key client projects and platforms, overseeing and providing focus for multi-functional teams by effectively defining business problems they can collectively solve.
• Work closely with brand, sales, customer and insights teams in manifesting commercial ideas that deliver breakthrough results.
• Work to align retailer segments with brand segments – providing rich dimension into humans’ hearts, minds, and behaviors.
• Ensure creative delivers against requirements of brand and customer communications.
• Represent the voice of the shopper to all stake holders to articulate commerce communication priorities.
• Support the creation of and write own inspirational and well-crafted creative briefs and present strategic story and support materials to both internal audiences of creatives, but also clients and outside partners.

Qualifications

• 4 plus years of experience in marketing or marketing communications, ideally will be within an established account or strategic planning function. 
• 4 plus years of hands-on experience working with primary, secondary and syndicated data.  Applied experience with database tools and systems such as Simmons, MRI, Kantar, or equivalent.
• Branding fundamentals.  Experience, command, and interest in how brands connect with people in today’s world.
• Ability to conceptualize an integrated marketing mix (advertising, promotion, retail, packaging, digital, media, PR etc.).
• Ability to inspire creative processes and development.
• Ability to recognize and develop creative ideas.
• Excellent professional presentation skills and creating the decks and thinking that fuel powerful profession strategy presentations.
• Excellent interpersonal skills.  Ability to communicate clearly, thoroughly, and succinctly both verbally and in written form to build relationships internally and with the client teams.
• Superlative communication skills (written and verbal).
• Collaborative.
• Organized and detail-oriented - (must demonstrate attention to detail and ability to handle multiple projects).
• Solution-oriented.
• Positive professional team player who takes ownership of tasks and who seeks and accepts other responsibilities.
• Understanding of human behavior and how it impacts purchase decision making.
• Ability to analyze results, interpret data, draw sound conclusions, and develop insightful and actionable recommendations – with a comfort level using data as a tool for creative inspiration.
• Interpersonal skills to selflessly inspire and elevate the work of those around them, and to work with different disciplines, resources, and personalities seamlessly.
• Curious, active, unconventional thinking with deft ability to apply cultural context to the work we deliver.

Preferred: 

• Direct experience with primary research – qualitative and/or quantitative.
• Shopper/customer marketing experience is a plus.

A little about us:

We are compelling commerce. We unlock the commercial potential of brands by creative Brand + Buying Experiences. A pillar of Omnicom Commerce, we offer full-service capabilities ranging from innovation to implementation. Clients include PepsiCo, Diageo, Starbucks, P&G, Pizza Hut, LEGO and more!

Tracy-Locke/Haygarth provides a competitive salary and comprehensive benefits plan. Salary is dependent on multiple factors including but not limited to skill set, experience, training, certifications, etc.

Benefits include:

• Great paid holiday schedule as well as vacation, sick and personal days.
• Health, vision, dental, 401K, employee stock purchase plan.
• Education assistance, paid parental leave, HSA & FSA.
• Family forming benefits, commuter benefits, travel assistance and identity theft support.
• Omnicom Employee Discounts.

... and more.

We have returned to the office in a hybrid capacity (3+ days/week in the office.) Our office locations are: Stamford (CT), Denver (CO), Irving (TX), and Chicago (IL).

SCAM ALERT:Our Tracy-Locke & Haygarth US recruiting team will NEVER ask you to send us money, technology or anything else in order to work for one of our companies. If you believe you are the victim of a scam, please contact the FTC at https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/job-scams#avoid.