Creative Strategy Lead

Gametime is a mobile-first marketplace for last-minute tickets to live sports, music and theater in more than 50 cities across the U.S. and Canada. We exist to bring people together through great live experiences, the once-in-a-lifetime moments fans remember. We're a profitable, growing company, and we're building the creative engine to match our ambition.

We're looking for a senior strategist who turns culture and insight into creative briefs, and turns good creative into “great.”

Gametime's Creative team is evolving from static-first, conversion-only paid social production to a full-funnel and multi-channel mandate that includes paid social, but also: CRM, TV, product visual merchandising, creator content, organic social and more. Our Brand & Growth Marketing partners set brand and channel strategy. Our creatives direct and make the work. You sit in the middle, translating a brand brief into a creative brief sharp enough to make the work better, or bringing the cultural insight that keeps both brand and performance creative relevant to fans of sports, music and theater.

This is a senior individual contributor role with no permanent direct reports, though you'll guide freelance strategists when we need extra capacity. You'll report to the VP of Creative and work across creative that maps to both Growth and Brand Marketing. 

You'll be accountable for three key outcomes. Your point of view shapes how you get there.

1. Creative briefs that make the work better

• Translate brand and marketing briefs into creative briefs that give creatives a sharp idea and a clear territory.
• Own and evolve our creative brief process, and set the standard for what a good brief looks like at Gametime.
• Stay with the work from first brief to final cut, giving clear strategic feedback that holds the work to the idea.
• Close the loop: write up what we learn from the work in market so it makes the next brief better.

1. Strategy for platforms and initiatives where we don't yet know what good looks like

• Develop the creative strategy for new and high-potential platforms across the Marketing org, such as CTV, Spotify and audio, Reddit and podcasts, with a clear view of what native creative looks like on each.
• Partner with channel leads, who own buying and targeting, so that creative approach and media plan are built together.
• Dig into initiatives where we want to raise the creative bar (i.e. creator-led content) and define what "better" means before we scale it.
• Design light-touch research or tests that tell us what's working and write up what we learn.

1. Cultural insight that serves both brand and performance

• Be our radar for what's happening in sports, music and theater fandom, and how fans talk, share and buy.
• Synthesize audience data, social listening, qualitative research and performance signals into a point of view on who our fans are and what moves them.
• Surface cultural insights and creative territories that brand creative and performance creative can both use.
• Partner with Growth, Brand Marketing, and Finance to connect creative strategy to business outcomes.

You'll also lead and guide freelance strategists when projects need extra capacity, setting the brief standard they work to, and you'll be one of several mentors for junior creatives on the team, sharing the craft of strategy.

By month 6 the brief is a tool people rely on; by month 12 our new platforms have clear answers.

When

What's true

First 90 days

You've taken over the creative brief process, shipped briefs for live work, and met the creative, brand marketing, Growth and channel partners you'll work with most. You've reviewed what we've already made and proposed the first platform or initiative to take on, agreed with the VP of Creative and Growth.

By 6 months

A creative brief standard is in use, and creative directors say it helps. Strategy for at least two new platforms is in market with first tests running and learnings written up. You've defined what better UGC looks like and how we'll get there. A recurring rhythm for cultural insight is in place, and both brand and performance creative use it.

By 12 months

A brand campaign has been briefed end to end with you. At least one new platform has moved from experiment to a clear decision to scale or stop, with the reasoning. Creative made from your briefs shows measurable lift against baseline in testing. Creative directors and channel leads point to the briefs as a reason the work got better.

We'd rather you meet these four fully than half-meet twelve.

• Taste and cultural judgment. 10+ years in creative strategy at an agency, a consumer brand, or a media, music, sports or entertainment company. You can show where your insight changed the idea, and you can tell a platform-native idea from a repurposed ad.
• Briefs that people use. You write clear, sharp creative briefs that creatives want to work from, and you can walk us from brief to work to result.
• You bridge brand and performance. You're comfortable with metrics, creative testing and the language of a growth team, and equally comfortable pitching a brand idea.
• AI amplifies your thinking and never replaces it. You use AI for tasks like synthesis, trend scanning and pressure-testing, but the point of view is your own. 

• Experience with strategy across formats and channels (i.e. CTV, audio and podcast, social)
• Experience with creator-led creative strategy
• Background in live entertainment, sports, music, theater, ticketing or marketplaces
• Experience mentoring junior talent or directing freelance strategists, with or without formal reports

This is a broad senior role with no permanent direct reports, so your influence comes from the quality of your thinking. You'll work with several creative leads, channel leads and brand marketing partners, and you'll need to build trust and clear decision rights with each.

Brand campaigns take priority when work competes for your time, and priorities will move as our marketing org evolves. Some of the platforms you'll take on are new to us, so you'll be setting the playbook as much as following one. The creative brief process is yours to shape.

The role is remote. If you like building the standard rather than inheriting it, you'll like it here.