Director, Creative - Cultural Engagement

Creative Director, Cultural Engagement Brand Campaigns

Location: Los Angeles, CA

About us: Walmart Creative Studio (WCS) is the in-house creative agency for Walmart. Our team develops breakthrough and distinctive omnichannel brand design systems that meet customer needs and drive business objectives while keeping our Fortune #1 brand relevant in culture. We use creativity and design to make Walmart an obvious choice for all.

We are positioned as an internal creative agency hyper-focused on the customer experience across all channels, categories, campaigns, and touchpoints. We are ruthlessly focused on our customers, insight-driven creative strategies, and integrated solutions that build the brand and grow the business – not just with ads, but through brand acts and experiences.

We value talent, diversity, innovation, curiosity, collaboration, culture, insights, and results, and we are committed to helping all people save money and live better.

Overview:

We are seeking a Creative Director to lead creative vision and strategy for cultural engagement platforms and campaigns: including but not limited to African-American, Asian-American, and Hispanic-focused audiences and campaigns. This role is crucial in shaping and executing our evolving campaigns as a networked narrative – ensuring a cohesive and impactful presence across all channels. This leader is tapped into cultural trends and understands where a brand can authentically tell culture-forward stories reflecting each community. This leader and team will also integrate with other campaigns, on a range of creative deliverables. Our campaigns require innovative, breakthrough and undeniably on-brand concepts that motivate and inspire our customers. This leader will be responsible for leading external agency partners and an internal team of Associate Creative Directors, Art Directors, Writers and Designers. The ideal candidate has in-house, and agency experience bringing a blend of strong leadership skills and hands-on creative expertise.

Key Responsibilities:

Strategic Leadership: Define and drive the creative vision for cultural engagement platforms & campaigns, aligning with overall brand strategy as well as enterprise and seasonal initiatives as necessary.

• Ensure the conversations we have with our customer are both deep and wide, and deliver on all the dimensions of our Live Better brand promise in communities where we live and work.
• Possess a deep understanding of culture and know how to infuse it authentically into our brand across all touchpoints.

Team Management: Manage, build and coach a multidisciplinary team of creatives providing guidance, contextual feedback and support to foster creative excellence.

• Mentor, guide, and grow the team with optimism and enthusiasm, pursuing an award-winning in-house agency model.
• Conduct semi-annual or annual performance evaluations with the goal to up-level our creative output; building skillsets such as: conceptual capabilities, ideating, presentation, creative/strategic alignment, public speaking, and critical thinking.
• Identify new, competitive talent to add to the growing team.

Collaboration: Work closely with senior leadership, marketing strategy, insights & planning, production, and other key stakeholders to craft campaigns that inspire, sustain and grow business.

• Pursue ways that we can work better, faster.
• Manage team and projects that are on-brief, strategic, creative, and comprehensive for presentations - mitigating feedback, ultimately keeping workstreams on track.
• Partner with Creative Account Management and Operations and Production to manage timelines and executions to concept breakthrough creative on schedule and on budget.
• Build strong relationships with Marketing and peer teams to accelerate team expertise & growth; sustain and grow business.

Enterprise Brand Cohesion:

• Ensure all creative materials are considered at various levels of the funnel.
• Ensure connection across all channels and touchpoints. Work towards the shared goal of greater brand attribution and recall.

Project Oversight: Manage campaign projects from inception to completion, ensuring timely delivery and alignment with strategic objectives.

• Lead the ideation of strategic, highly relatable & engaging concepts, leveraging relevant swipe crafting persuasive decks and adlobs, present to key stakeholders and executives, work with the team to create all pre-production decks, be integral to the casting and selection of talent/crews to bring our vision alive (directors, photographers, stylists, etc.), execute on set, direct post-production processes overseeing the edit, color, sound, and design of all post-shoot assets, and be accountable for final delivery of asset suites.
• Employ critical thinking to ensure we’re always on task. Take feedback and craft clear, actionable directions with context for teams.

Trend Awareness: Stay abreast of industry trends, culture and emerging design technologies incorporating relevant trends into brand concepts.

Qualifications:

• Proven experience as a Creative Director or similar role in the advertising or retail industry.
• Exceptional portfolio demonstrating experience developing 360 campaigns with breakthrough and branded examples for large-scale enterprises/clients.
• Strong leadership, collaboration and interpersonal skills, with the ability to inspire, motivate and lead a creative team and partner with agency creatives.
• Excellent understanding of Lifestage and Seasonal consumer behavior within a retail landscape.
• Previous experience leading creative story-telling during culturally relevant moments.
• 12+ years of experience in conceptual campaign advertising, with a proven track record of leadership and successful project management at a high-level.
• Proficiency in industry-standard design tools and software including the Adobe Creative Suite, Microsoft Office, Google Slides, Slack and Figma.
• Experience working in a fast-paced, high-stakes environment leading brand design work in-house or agency side.
• Bilingual in Spanish & English (written & verbal) is preferred.
• Bachelor or master’s degree in graphic design, advertising, brand strategy, or a related field.

Reporting:

• Reports to Group Creative Director.
• Leads and collaborates with agencies. Oversees team responsible for cross-cultural work, including Associate Creative Directors, Senior Designers, Art Directors, Writers and Designers.
• In office.

Why Join Us:

• If you are a creative leader with a flair for thoughtful, conceptual and breakthrough storytelling – no matter how small the ad, or large the megaphone – and a track record of delivering exceptional results, we invite you to apply and be part of our journey to redefine the retail landscape.
• A dynamic and collaborative work environment with a thrilling job to be done: make Walmart relevant to every American via world-class creativity and execution.
• Competitive compensation and comprehensive benefits package.
• Opportunities for professional growth and development within a global industry leader.

At Walmart, we offer competitive pay as well as performance-based bonus awards and other great benefits for a happier mind, body, and wallet. Health benefits include medical, vision and dental coverage. Financial benefits include 401(k), stock purchase and company-paid life insurance. Paid time off benefits include PTO (including sick leave), parental leave, family care leave, bereavement, jury duty, and voting. Other benefits include short-term and long-term disability, company discounts, Military Leave Pay, adoption and surrogacy expense reimbursement, and more. You will also receive PTO and/or PPTO that can be used for vacation, sick leave, holidays, or other purposes. The amount you receive depends on your job classification and length of employment. It will meet or exceed the requirements of paid sick leave laws, where applicable.

Minimum Qualifications:

Bachelor’s degree in Design, Marketing, Creative Writing, Advertising, Fine Arts, or related field and 7 years' experience leading creative teams OR 9 years' experience leading creative teams.

Preferred Qualifications:

Managing Brand Initiatives for Product Launches, Managing Budgets, Including Budget Forecasting and Reporting Financials, Managing cross-functional teams in a retail creative environment, Managing large scale interactive campaigns in an online creative or related digital field, Managing Vendor Contracts and Relationships, Working for or with creative agencies.

Primary Location:

5404 Jandy Plc, Los Angeles, CA 90066-7006, United States of America

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