Creative Director

Job Summary:

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As a Creative Director, you are responsible for crafting innovating ideas and impactful designs, using visual styles to bring life to bold creative ideas, conceptual development and crafted storytelling across channels at a senior-level. You are also responsible to inspire teams and individuals to unlock their potentials while living the values of the agency.

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Skills Required:

An M&C Creative Director must possess the following skills in order to succeed:

Conceptual Thinking:

· You are ultimately responsible for the quality of thinking that you and the teams under you produce. This should be of a consistently high quality.

· You should be able to both develop and inspire great, fresh, impactful and integrated thinking.

· You need to seek out and encourage diverse thinking and ideas.

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Execution:

· You are the benchmark of quality and the standard for your discipline in the agency.

· Your art direction should be beyond question and be the envy of all below you. You should display an intolerance for the ordinary.

Presentation:

· You can present work with conviction to the most senior clients and organisational heads.

· You will be responsible for presenting your teams pitch work.

· You will need to be able to present work right from strategy to creative execution.

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Production:

· You will be responsible for all production decisions: choice of suppliers and the quality of work you extract from them.

· You should feel confident having the final say on work before it goes to client and the media.

People & Relationship Management:

· One of the most important parts of your job. Rallying all agency disciplines from strategy, AM, Production, Creative teams and Traffic, behind solving problems a      and creating great work.

· You are also solely responsible for the happiness, performance and motivation levels of the entire creative department.

· You are both manager and mentor - you need to facilitate and inspire great work.

· You need to have the excellent interpersonal skills and buy-in from all.

· Employ the right, diverse people for your team.

Additional Role Dimensions:

• Business accountability: Be fully immersed and gain an understanding of the client business as well as the competitor activity. You are able to hold your clients strategy in mind while directing work.

• Internal relationships: Establish strong relationship with all internal stakeholders.

• Be an adaptable team player. You understand the power of a well run team. You block bad briefs, but you are at heart a collaborator. You don’t do “us and them” but know that all ideas and opinions from other departments can be heard.

• External relationship: You have a strong relationship with both your clients and production houses. You are able to solve problems for your team by leaning into those relationships when difficult discussions should be had.

• Working environment: Demonstrate a collaborative attitude with care and passion across work and beyond. You are the custodian of the energy within your teams and you are able to make work fun even in the long hours. You don’t take yourself too seriously but the role you play professionally. You hold the ladder firmly as others ascend to their career aspirations.

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Experience Required:

· 8+ years’ experience as an Art Director in the Advertising industry.

· 2+ years’ experience as a Creative Director.

· An in-depth understanding of the key departments, processes and structures within an Advertising Agency.

· Good knowledge of media landscape (traditional - TTL, ATL & BTL & digital)

· Expert technical knowledge of Adobe Creative Cloud: specifically, InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator.

· Bonus would be a working knowledge of other platforms that help an art director bring ideas to life: Premiere Pro, After Effects, Dimension, Mid journey etc.

· Experienced in working with internal team and senior clients across multiple stakeholders.

· A proven award-winning portfolio.

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Qualification Required:

· Art Direction tertiary qualification

· Graphic design tertiary degree

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Personal Qualities required:

At M&C you will need to:

· The courage to push boundaries and push for excellent work.

· Communicate effectively to clients and internal teams.

· Be assertive & have no tolerance attitude for the ordinary.

· Be solutions orientated across all multiple stakeholders.

· Be open and have a keenness to work with diverse people.

Art Director Competencies:

Behavioural Competencies:

• Creative Thinker

• Intuitive

• Strategic Thinker

• Can-do Attitude

• Proactive Problem-solver

• Independent

• Effective Communicator

• Resilient

• Integrity

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Technical/Functional Competencies:

• Develop and produce creative concepts, campaigns, and functional digital designs that meet the client’s communications objectives and drive business results in response to creative briefs.

• Lead and inspire Art Direction best practice.

• Excellent Presentation skills.

• Work well under pressure.

• Have a drive to compete at the highest industry levels not only for yourself but for your own portfolio of work.

• Be able to mine true insights and apply them to any given brief.  

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Leadership Competencies:

• Social intelligence

• Conflict management

• Accountability

• Self-management

• Collaborative

• Influence

• Empathy

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