Senior Creative Strategist

Job Description

Job Description

About On Board Experiential (OBE)

OBE is a global marketing agency that brings brands to life through culture-shaping experiences. For more than 30 years, we've partnered with iconic brands — including Nike, the NFL, JPMorganChase, Meta, Sephora, Starbucks, and Converse — to build community, create cultural relevance, and drive measurable business impact. With offices in Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, and London, we activate globally. OBE is also a founding member of The ADD Collective, extending our reach and resources while staying true to our core capabilities.

We've been recognized by Event Marketer as one of the best places to work in events — and we couldn't agree more.

The most important part of our business is our people. They are hardworking, imaginative, and make genuinely remarkable things happen. But behind every great activation is a human who deserves rest, connection, and a life outside of work. That's why we invest in recovery days, company offsites, happy hours, and the kind of friendly-but-competitive fitness challenges that bond teams for life.

We show up for each other — in open conversations that heal, inspire, and bring us closer. We want to hear about your lived experiences, your unconventional ideas, and the perspectives only you can bring. Being unapologetically yourself isn't just welcome here. It's part of the job.

SUMMARY OF POSITION  

The Senior Creative Strategist is a critical member of the Creative team, driving the insight-based foundation of all our Creative work and demonstrating our success in meeting client objectives. The Senior Creative Strategist is an expert in developing cut-through insights from targeted research and deftly navigates client conversations to the heart of each brief. They love to dig into the details of diverse brands, audiences, and industries to uncover nuggets of insight that are both surprising and simple.  

The Senior Creative Strategist heroes experience-led thinking as they guide strategy development through upstream parts of the Creative process, then serve as the anchor to that strategy throughout execution. They take a channel-agnostic approach to solving client challenges while understanding the unique value experiential marketing offers as part of the client's marketing mix. They excel at guiding a project through periods of ambiguity by using smart strategic planning, including leaning on various research methods, collaborative exercises, and other tools to find the right path forward.   As a natural storyteller, the Sr. Creative Strategist uses a variety of techniques and formats to spark creativity, ideate, curate, and deliver compelling strategies and ideas. They know when to pull in various resources to craft holistic concepts and have great intuition on how to approach each deliverable, interweaving expertise from cross-functional contributors when and where they're needed. 

ESSENTIAL JOB FUNCTIONS  

BRIEF CREATION & DISSECTION 

• Review client briefs and participate in client briefing conversations / kick-offs to clarify the ask, determine the underlying objectives, and define success for both the clients and OBE. 

• Identify opportunities for unconventional, elevated and results-driving work. 

• Collaborate with Account team to determine initial approach. 

RESEARCH & INSIGHTS 

• Create targeted research plans to inform project strategy that include a variety of resources and techniques to gather relevant data, including primary research (e.g., focus groups, surveys, interviews) and secondary research (e.g., search engine articles, databases, industry sites, etc.) 

• Develop powerful insights from research that inform and fuel creative brainstorms. 

CONCEPT DEVELOPMENT (Project & Pitch)  

• Develop measurable objectives and Key Performance Indicators to help ground and guide overall concept and proposal development.  

• Identify key insights for creative concepting and brainstorms.  

• Lead internal brainstorms and idea rakes, independently and/or in partnership with Senior Creative team members (Director-level and above). 

• Develop big, brave creative ideas as part of RFP responses and Concept Development phases of won business independently and/or in partnership with Senior Creative team members. 

• Craft well-articulated plans and points of view, including comprehensive pitch decks for select opportunities and projects that include clear insights, strategies, and creative concepts in a thoughtful, compelling, and cohesive storyline.   

• Collaborate with Design team members to create cohesive and visually inspiring presentations that lead to client buy-in. 

MEASUREMENT & ROI  

• Develop Measurement Plans for new and ongoing proposals and projects, discerning measurable objectives and related Key Performance Indicators, as well as identifying data collection methods for capturing data related to each KPI.  

• Supporting the Account team in collecting and analyzing KPI-related data in efforts to calculate ROI/ROE.  

• Build data-based project recaps / post-project analyses that clearly articulate ROI, highlight our successes, provide recommendations for improvement, and convey optimization opportunities for the future.  

BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT  

• Partner with Account team to uncover organic growth opportunity with assigned client accounts and develop strategies to mine and realize those opportunities. 

• Manage multiple stakeholders as part of RFP / proposal development processes, supporting the organization and creating concept decks, monitoring, and collecting content deliverables from across the cross-functional team. 

• Participate in select client pitches. 

• Proactively research client brands and industry trends to support Creative and Account teams in building organic and new business opportunities. 

OBE MARKETING SUPPORT  

• Support Awards submissions for assigned client projects and/or agency-wide recognition. 

• Monitor industry trends to share out internally as well as contributing to external agency thought leadership. 

• Assist Marketing and New Business teams in creating targeted capabilities presentations for specific clients by leveraging case study library and capabilities overview.  

• Contribute to OBE Social Media presence in collaboration with Marketing team. 

• Support internal communications in collaboration with People team, as needed.  

ADDITIONAL TASKS COULD ALSO INCLUDE:  

• Overall Strategy & Creative team support 

• Participating in client meetings. 

• Architecting and presenting capabilities. 

• Copywriting support for both internal and project-specific deliverables (i.e., email marketing copy, signage copy support, etc.). 

• Contributing to and/or leading internal groups, initiatives, and task forces. 

• Participating in and leading Strategy Development sessions. 

• Participating in and/or leading Creative Department meetings. 

• Contributing to agency-wide Key Learnings and Best Practices. 

• Participating in new hire recruitment and interviews. 

DESIRED SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE  

EDUCATION 

Bachelor's or Master's degree in Marketing, Strategy, Branding, Advertising, Communications, Business Administration or related field.  

EXPERIENCE 

• Minimum of three-five years agency experience. 

• Experience building overarching strategies and generating ideas for innovative brand marketing