Associate Director - Social Strategy

Cheil Dallas/Strategy
Associate Director, Social Strategy

About us
Join us in a place where creativity meets grounded innovation, where you don't just react, but instead spearhead the future of brand narratives. Here, your curiosity unlocks doors, your insights pave paths, and world-class campaigns follow the north star you chart. Welcome to Cheil.

Cheil Worldwide, a global titan from Seoul, stands proud as the world's 11th-largest creative agency. Founded by Samsung in 1973 to grow its global business, our journey has attracted a constellation of iconic brands, from Adidas and Coca-Cola to PayPal and Starbucks.

Our Dallas office, strategically positioned at Legacy Central in Plano, Texas, serves as the lead agency for a key client, Samsung Mobile US, while actively pitching new business opportunities. We are 200+ creative problem-solvers working together to shape insight-fueled, culture-leading, tech-empowered ideas.

We want you to help us shape these ideas, using storytelling, data, and consumer advocacy to look beyond the conventional and do the never-been-done.

Responsibilities

• Lead brands: Craft and execute social strategies for key agency clients. Dive deep into audience insights, conduct primary and secondary research, and develop innovative messaging and content approaches, including lasting social best practices that offer our brands a competitive edge. Guide the team through creative briefings, ensuring alignment with brand objectives.
• Lead clients: Develop relationships with clients, positioning the agency to deliver increasingly relevant and innovative work on each client's behalf. Develop and apply strategic frameworks, scorecards, and POVs that guide decisions.
• Lead the team: Mentor the strategic contributions and growth your direct reports. Participate in the recruitment of the next generation of strategists for the agency.
• Collaborate: Collaborate as a member of the greater strategy team (Brand Strategy, Connections Strategy, and Social Strategy) and with internal teams in account management, data science, creative, and more. Build strong internal relationships and model new ways of working to drive more effective, and more interesting, client work.
• Build vision: Contribute to strategy thought leadership, internally and externally. Proactively deliver information that educates colleagues and clients on trending developments, consumers, brand, and cultural landscape opportunities to use these perspectives to improve the work we do.
• Pitch new business: Assist with our portfolio expansion through formal new business processes, preparing and presenting in RFPs, pitches, and project proposals.
• Add to our strategy discipline: Contribute to and foster a radically open, smart, and kind culture. Present opportunities to refine how our brand strategy team works, co-anchoring our growth in insightful programs and strong creative work.

Requirements
Credentials of our ideal strategist:

• A Bachelor's degree, preferably in fields like social sciences, English, or strategic communications.
• 6+ years of experience in strategy/account planning in an ad agency.
• At least 4 years in the social media space
• Experience in consumer electronics, communications, or technology sectors preferred, but not required.
• Ahead of the trends - an expert knowledge of what moves social media today, what resonates with consumers online, and how to create best in class content.
• Understanding knowledge of what goes into social first content creation and the ability to translate creative best practices into creative briefs.
• Knowledge and comfortability with social media publishing and listening tools.
• Experienced community manager with a knack for building brands through conversations with fans, influencers, and brands.
• Expert level ability to craft presentations that tell a story.
• Confidence in senior client-facing presentations.
• Profound experience in consumer research and ability to discern observations from insights.
• Collaborative knack with creatives in ideation and campaign development.
• Expertise across multichannel platforms and the ability to convert insights into actionable briefs.
• Proactiveness in anticipating business challenges and addressing them.
• Proficiency in data metrics, KPIs, analytics, and insight-driven optimizations.
• Versatility across agency roles: brand, digital, retail, and influencer strategy.
• Stellar communication skills, catering to diverse understanding levels.
• Comfort in collaborating with senior leadership within the agency and clients.
• Strong grasp of how media platforms complement each other in an integrated strategy.
• Flexibility for travel, extended hours, and occasional weekends.
• Ability to operate in a hybrid office environment (2-3 days per week in office), valuing contribution over mere attendance.