What are the responsibilities and job description for the Brand Strategist position at Walker Sands?
Walker Sands strongly encourages people of color, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and non-binary people, veterans, parents and individuals with disabilities to apply. As an equal opportunity employer, we are committed to diversity, equity and inclusion and welcome everyone to our team.
In your application, please feel free to note which pronouns you use (for example, she/her/hers, he/him/his, they/them/theirs, etc.). Please also let us know if you need a reasonable accommodation at any point in the application or interview process.
Overview:
Walker Sands is looking for a Brand Strategist to join our creative team. Walker Sands is operating as a hybrid workplace — if you're not currently in one of our hub cities, you have the option to either work remotely or relocate closer to one of our offices in the future.
The ideal candidate is a collaborative, fact-driven thinker who can support our brand and creative development processes by uncovering trends, distilling insights and synthesizing information into inspiring outputs for internal teams and client partners. The Brand Strategist should be the starting point for groundbreaking creative work and the go-to resource for analytical thinking around a range of B2B industries and audiences.
This job is the perfect opportunity to gain exposure to high-profile clients while working with agency leadership to build a growing branding team within the agency's creative department.
Responsibilities
- Audit historical client materials and market research. Determine quality of existing audience insights and marketing strategies. Analyze the consistency of messaging across channels and collateral. Identify areas of alignment and disagreement.
- Conduct primary research. Collaborate with senior strategists to write discussion guides, design surveys, oversee focus groups, lead interviews and manage third-party vendors.
- Conduct secondary research. Find unique, unexpected insights about B2B clients and industries. Uncover trends on how the tech world is evolving.
- Execute competitive analyses and relative positioning of multiple brands in a specific industry. Identify opportunities and threats. Map out strategic positioning for future marketing efforts.
- Define brand architecture in terms of how a company's master brand, sub-brands and products all relate to each other and how that portfolio should be presented to the market.
- Synthesize findings from research into clear and focused strategies that guide our creative teams and impress our clients.
- Provide actionable insights for creative briefs. Offer constructive feedback to creative leads while ensuring all deliverables align with overarching brand strategies and business goals.
Qualifications
- 2-4 years of advertising, branding or marketing experience or equivalent higher education experience (e.g. Master's degree)
- Agency experience preferred but not required
- Experience conducting customer interviews to inform brand development and audience personas
- Experience supporting branding engagements, including helping to produce strategic brand assets (positioning, brand personality traits, brand architecture and more)
- A passion for creativity, brands, culture and technology and an understanding of how people think and behave
- An entrepreneurial spirit with a can-do attitude
- Ability to lead multiple projects with minimal supervision
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to elucidate complex subject matter
- Bonus points: Graduate degree in business, communication or a related field; experience working directly with B2B brands