Senior Manager, Asia Brand Creative
Become part of the Converse Team
Converse is a place to explore potential, break barriers and push out the edges of what can be. The company looks for people who can grow, think, dream and create. Its culture thrives by embracing diversity and rewarding imagination. The brand seeks achievers, leaders and visionaries. At Converse, it's about each person bringing skills and passion to a challenging and constantly evolving world to make things better as a team.
Brand Creative is the Art of Storytelling. We are the storytellers, the voice of Converse's heart & soul. It's about telling powerful stories across the entire brand ecosystem, leveraging all existing and new platforms to inspire, enable and engage creator, while driving brand distinction and business impact through insightful understanding of the creators & consumers. We strive to inspire people with stories rooted in youth culture.
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ABOUT OUR TEAM
The Asia Brand Creative team is the guardian of the brand when it comes down to visual, tone & voice and all things creative. This team leads the conception of verbal and visual expressions of the WHY for Converse in the Asia geo (Greater China and Korea). We enable and tell stories of creativity, self-expression and youth progress through brand, product, innovation, purpose, and style expression narratives. The team does this work through making All Star behavior the core of our creative process via mediums of image, film, experience, relationship curation and writing. The result is our audience understanding that Converse is a brand of purpose, people and products that continually spark progress.
Who we are looking for
You are a multidisciplinary creative with experience implementing across various mediums including Art Direction, Graphic Design, Typography, and Spatial Design. You love to collaborate with other creatives and marketing teams and have a proven ability to deliver emotive and innovative work across multiple platforms.
You have experience when it comes to directing other creatives and are familiar with working in close partnership with writers, strategists, and producers. You are able to both understand and participate in strategic conversations and can lead others through creative conception, development, and execution.
You have proven experience working at scale and can lead complex work streams independently - managing and prioritizing your time as needed. You're outstanding at crafting the detail all the way to delivery and using this experience to teach others around you.
You have a natural passion for art and design and proactively work to keep abreast of all new trends. You enjoy commissioning external talent and experience in briefing and critiquing the work of others. You continuously look for new talent and work to grow your creative network in all areas. You are passionate about new technology and actively work to understand this constantly evolving landscape.
You help the team implement creative across multiple channels, from photo direction, to understanding and working against a narrative, to graphic design, communication, moving image and environmental design (where needed). A successful candidate is versed in digital and retail storytelling, with a strong understanding of creative and design trends across all social platforms, owned ecommerce platforms and retail environments.
What you will work on
• Lead the Brand Creative team in Asia geo, in partnership with global Brand Creative team
• Partner with Brand planning team for the development of seasonal brand product stories
• Drive Asia Brand Creative team to research photographers, talent and collaborators for seasonal objectives. Distill and collate to create mood boards that will lead to setting the seasonal photographic and style direction
• Develop new/relevant ways to do visual storytelling in digital and retail experience
• Responsible for the creation and update of all seasonal product marketing assets as well as evergreen brand assets
• Create seasonal visual centers and toolkits that translate complex technical and business concepts into easy-to-understand communication pieces and executional guidance
• Manage and direct multiple agency relationships across multiple projects with a clear design voice and an unbending creative rigor
Who you will work with
You'll report to the Sr Director, Brand Marketing Asia and workday to day with your peers in Brand, Entertainment & Energy marketing team, Digital marketing team and Retail marketing team in Asia geo. You'll be a partner to the Global Brand Creative team. You will also collaborate and guide external partners and agencies, including professionals in your respective field.
What you bring
• 8-10+ years of progressive and technically sophisticated graphic design and/or art direction experience in branded content at an agency and brand marketing environment, with ideally a strong focus on consumer brands
• Great human and communication skills. This includes a strong ability to listen, and coach.
• Proven exceptional ability to apply and perform design skills, including drawing/sketching, typography, ideation, color theory, use of texture, art direction, visual presentation development and layout
• Demonstrated ability to apply these skills in innovative ways that elevate brand excellence, with a comprehensive knowledge of design processes
• Experience directing photography (talent and product), illustration, and external agencies
• Knowledge and sensitivity to trends influencing design in general, and in graphic design, lifestyle specifically
• You will be able to distil briefs down in a way that allows you to showcase your thinking in creative ways
• Experience of collaborating effectively with other functions, departments and external stakeholders -the ability to embrace when not directly owning key workstreams
• Passion for reinventing the way we approach traditional ways of working. Not scared to challenge the past and in doing so push new creative ways of thinking and working
• Great sense of judgment and decision-making. Emotionally intelligent with a growth mindset
• Experience working in and passionate about youth culture including sport, music, fashion and art
• Ability to deliver on role responsibilities while still contributing to the brand marketing team
• Demonstrated success working in a rapidly changing, high growth environment and the ability to lead multiple and competing work priorities, demands and changes while maintaining creative quality
• Excellent verbal and visual communication skills; experienced at communicating and defending creative work
• Excellent knowledge of photographers, stylists, artists and filmmakers
• Ability to concept and art direct photo shoots at the highest level
Qualifications
Business level proficiency in both Mandarin and English language
• Bachelor's Degree in Graphic Design or design-related equivalent
• Strong computer skills in Adobe Suite, with experience creating and delivering presentations to all levels of the organization