Art Director, Brand

Freedom Financial Network

San Mateo

Who is Freedom Financial Network?

A company with a story to tell. A company whose mission is to empower everyday Americans to move forward towards a brighter financial future. An established, profitable business with employees who love working here enough to vote it "Best Places to Work". Whose customers say things like "they saved my marriage", "they helped me develop a healthier relationship with money," and "I can sleep at night now that I have Freedom in my corner."

Its not every day a company with as much legacy, heart and success goes through a transformative brand evolution to help tell its story to millions of current and potential new customers. And its not every day that a team - a world class internal agency - is being built from the ground up to help lead, launch and build a new brand at literally every customer touchpoint, both externally AND internally. In a new and critical Brand Creative role as our Art Director, Brand Creative, you will help shape and drive the expression of our new brand and develop a holistic experience as the consumer-centric leader in financial solutions for struggling and striving Americans. You will develop breakthrough creative to tell our company story in a way that is credible, human, empathetic, and authentic. You are comfortable working across digital and offline media and with developing both evergreen assets and campaigns in an elevated yet consistent manner, aligning with our value proposition and key brand/consumer insights.

To be successful in this role, you must be someone who understands the value of a brand and who is passionate about telling compelling stories that embody and express a brand. You are a natural champion for the target consumers you serve. You have a strong understanding of branding and storytelling and are able to work collaboratively with designers and writers, and just as importantly, with cross-functional partners, internal clients, and external agencies. You view every project as a portfolio opportunity, and embrace THINKING about a project before going into execution mode. You have a track record of delivering outstanding results in a way that garners respect from your team members with creative that supports both the brand and the business. Not last and not least, you collaborate and work comfortably across teams and disciplines.

The Role:

• Develop our companys brand storytelling and deliver compelling executions that build and amplify our brand across mediums and channels.
• Conceptualize and create original brand-level consumer-facing assets for a variety of our corporate and external-facing touchpoints - both in print and digitally.
• Build and evolve the company's internal asset libraries including photo, video, iconography and illustration to support customer stories, product and a brand point of view.
• Serve as Creative Directors "right hand person", comfortable presenting, garnering feedback and soliciting critique on creative work both on a brand and KPI level.
• Build relationships and work collaboratively with a cross-functional team of visual and UX designers, social media managers, brand marketing managers, marketing acquisition creatives, and lifecycle marketing writers to ensure our brand is expressed consistently in our marketing messaging and product experiences.
• Think conceptually and can craft presentations to drive decisions.
• Collaborate with and help Creative director with external brand and creative agency partnerships.
• Create a foundation for best-in-class brand creative as our brand organization continues to grow.
• Be a model for project management and communication, balancing, managing and "doing" effectively through the course of any given project.

Minimum Qualifications:

• 7+ years relevant experience developing brand-level creative that exemplifies how brand and business can support each other - either with an agency or in-house creative team.
• Bachelors degree in Design, Marketing, Communications, or a related field and/or equivalent experience
• A compelling portfolio of examples demonstrating how you have embodied and built strong brands through design, copy and exceptional storytelling components
• Strong leadership, communication and collaboration skills. Able to build relationships, partner and influence cross-functional team members.
• Strong track record of building effective marketing programs rooted in deep consumer insights. You are passionate about understanding and advocating for consumers in messaging, copy and design.
• Experience building visual asset libraries to expand the expression of a brand including photography, video, illustration, iconography, etc.
• You thrive on being an advocate for a great company. You are passionate about doing the right thing by our customers, our employees, and our community.
• Forward-thinking, optimistic, and strategic. Success building a brand identity or evolving one.
• Energetic, assertive, results-oriented, self-starter with the desire and ability to go above and beyond. Seeks opportunities to contribute to the teams broader success.

Oh, and why us?

If youve gotten this far, youre interested in working with a creative team about to embark on an insanely great and exciting brand evolution. And were just getting started. Literally. Were building a creative culture that embraces creative acumen, conceptual & thought leadership, partnership and an opportunity to embrace challenges/be challenged - beginning with a clean slate.

• We are a diverse group of individuals with a common goal of helping our customers achieve financial health.
• We value each others opinions and prioritize whats best for our customers.
• We value the "human" component at all levels and its reflected in the services we provide and our internal supportive culture.
• We focus and invest in the growth of every individual.
• We live our values to care for everyone around us, act with integrity every time, collaborate with everybody we work with, and get better at what we do every day.
• Weve been recognized as one of the Top 100 Fastest-Growing Companies in the Bay Area for 2020.