Director of Creative, Marketing & Branding

Position: Director, Creative, Marketing & Branding

Department: Communication, Marketing & Public Engagement

Reports to: SVP, Communications, Marketing & Public Engagement

Salary Grade: Q

Salary Range: 97,700-122,200

Position Summary:

The Director of Creative, Marketing and Branding conceptualizes and leads creative direction while overseeing Atlanta Housing's brand strategy and marketing execution to ensure the agency's identity, messaging and creative standards are consistently expressed across all channels and touchpoints. This role is responsible for planning and delivering major marketing campaigns, overseeing brand standards, directing creative development and partnering across the Office of Communications to translate agency priorities into clear, audience-centered marketing and outreach.

The ideal candidate combines brand leadership with hands-on campaign execution, including channel strategy and performance measurement. This role requires strong cross-functional leadership to align marketing work with operational realities, resident needs, and stakeholder expectations while maintaining a tone that is accessible, credible, and mission-driven. A core priority of this role is overseeing marketing and brand positioning for Atlanta Housing's redevelopment and new construction pipeline to ensure development milestones are communicated clearly and consistently to residents, stakeholders and partners. This role also requires strong social and digital expertise, including oversight of channel strategy, content planning, community engagement standards, and performance improvement across Atlanta Housing's digital platforms.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities:

• Own and operationalize Atlanta Housing's brand strategy, including brand positioning, tone/voice guidance, visual standards, and consistent application across departments and platforms.
• Conceptualize and lead creative direction from campaign through production, launch and performance evaluation, ensuring work is on-brand, audience-centered and measurable.
• Establish and enforce brand governance, which includes templates, standards, and approval workflows that reduce inconsistency and improve speed-to-market.
• Serve as the senior brand advisor to internal partners, ensuring materials are accessible, accurate, and aligned with Atlanta Housing's mission and public-facing role.
• Lead the development of an annual and quarterly marketing plan and calendar aligned to agency priorities, key milestones, and major initiatives.
• Develop campaign briefs that define audience, objectives, key messages, channels, creative direction, timeline, and measurement approach.
• Direct integrated campaigns across paid, earned, shared, and owned channels in partnership with Public & Media Relations and Social & Digital Media.
• Lead marketing and brand positioning for Atlanta Housing's redevelopment and new construction pipeline, including major milestones such as announcements, community engagements, groundbreakings, closings, and openings.
• Partner with Real Estate and development teams to translate project information into clear, compelling public-facing materials tailored to residents, community stakeholders, and partners.
• Oversee development-specific marketing toolkits and collateral, including project fact sheets, community meeting materials, partner-ready one-pagers, visual standards for renderings, and phase-based messaging as projects progress.
• Ensure development marketing aligns with agency-wide brand standards while adapting appropriately for community context, project phase, and audience needs.
• Oversee social and digital strategy and execution, including channel management, editorial standards, content planning, community engagement approach, and performance.
• Ensure every major campaign includes a coordinated digital distribution plan (content calendar, channel plan, creative requirements, and measurement).
• Supervise and guide social and digital work through the Manager, Marketing & Content Strategy, ensuring disciplined content calendars, consistent messaging, and improved quality and performance across platforms.
• Establish and maintain a regular cadence for social and digital reporting, translating metrics into insights and recommendations for optimization.
• Oversee paid media strategy and execution through internal planning and external partners, including budget allocation, channel mix, audience targeting, and performance optimization.
• Manage agency and vendor relationships (creative, media, print/mail, web, research), including scopes of work, timelines, deliverables, and quality control.
• Evaluate tools, platforms, and vendors to improve marketing effectiveness, efficiency, and compliance with procurement and public-sector requirements.
• Establish campaign measurement standards including KPIs, benchmarks, reporting cadence, and performance insights.
• Use data to optimize campaigns and improve outcomes (awareness, engagement, event participation, program uptake, stakeholder understanding), partnering with internal teams and vendors as needed.
• Create executive-ready performance summaries that translate metrics into insights and recommendations.
• Provide creative direction and oversight for Atlanta Housing's flagship marketing products and collateral, including:
  
  • Annual Report
  • Resident magazines and publications
  • Property catalogues/portfolio materials
  • Branded one-pagers and program collateral
  • AH-branded merchandise and swag
  • Campaign toolkits and event collateral (in coordination with the comms functions)
  • Development marketing toolkits (project fact sheets, community meeting materials, renderings packages, partner-ready one-pagers)
• Supervise internal creative staff and ensure high-quality, on-brand deliverables across design, photo, and video, maintaining a consistent standard for production quality and brand alignment.
• Partners with vendors as needed to extend capacity and ensure timelines and quality standards are met.
• Partner closely with the Director, Public & Media Relations, to align marketing campaigns with narrative priorities, event communications, and stakeholder engagement needs.
• Work with internal departments to translate complex programs and operational updates into accessible, resident-centered marketing communications.
• Perform other communications-related duties as assigned.

Knowledge & Skill Requirements:

• Bachelor's degree in marketing, Communications, or Business Administration; master's preferred.
• 8+ years of experience in marketing/brand strategy, campaign development, and creative leadership; agency experience strongly preferred.
• Demonstrated experience overseeing paid media strategy and working with media/creative agencies (planning, buying oversight, optimization, reporting).
• Strong understanding of brand management, integrated campaign planning, and audience-centered marketing
• Demonstrated experience leading social and digital strategy, including content and channel management, and performance optimization.
• Experience developing measurement frameworks and using data to guide decisions (e.g., Google Analytics, platform insights, dashboard/reporting tools).
• Strong leadership and cross-functional collaboration skills; able to influence across departments and manage multiple stakeholders.
• Strong project management skills; comfort working in a deadline-driven environment with multiple workstreams.
• Familiarity with marketing and design tools/platforms such as MailChimp, WordPress, Adobe Creative Cloud (Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator) is a plus.
• Experience in marketing and/or advertising agency, housing, community development, or similar complex mission-driven organizations is a plus.

Working Conditions:

Works in an office environment. May require frequent bending, stooping, reaching and prolonged sitting and/or standing. May require regular lifting usually not exceeding 20 lbs. Some travel may be required.