Brand Marketing Creative Lead

at U.S. Bank in Chicago, Illinois, United States

Job Description

At U.S. Bank, we’re on a journey to do our best. Helping the customers and businesses we serve to make better and smarter financial decisions and enabling the communities we support to grow and succeed. We believe it takes all of us to bring our shared ambition to life, and each person is unique in their potential. A career with U.S. Bank gives you a wide, ever-growing range of opportunities to discover what makes you thrive at every stage of your career. Try new things, learn new skills and discover what you excel at-all from Day One.

Job Description

The Brand & Creative team at U.S. Bank is driving growth and innovation by positioning U.S. Bank strongly in the market and with key audience profiles, increasing the brand’s connection to culture and delivering creative solutions that drive business outcomes.

We are looking for a client-centric, innovative, and digital- creative leader who will grow consumer awareness and demand of U.S. Bank products, services and experiences through best-in-class creative expressions. This leader will have the opportunity to set the vision and operationalize our in-house creative studio of designers and writers and consider how to extend the team’s capacity and capabilities through new ways of working and AI.

U.S. Bank is focused on enhancing client service, building new capabilities, and driving efficiency and effectiveness across business lines and corporate functions. As such, this individual must bring a desire to lead change on behalf of clients and team members alike, and be able to operate in a centralized, highly accountable construct. This individual must strike the right balance between leading change at a swift pace and maintaining focus on driving business outcomes and developing talent in the team.

In this role, you will partner to determine the best way for U.S. Bank to represent our brand identity and market positioning across all channels and platforms and in customer experiences. The role involves an equal mix of strategy development, process improvement, creative vision, and execution as well as team leadership. You will be a key brand ambassador responsible for refining, interpreting, protecting, and extending U.S. Bank’s brand proposition and identity. You will oversee our brand’s visual and verbal “voice” internally, across our lines of business, channel partners and externally in the marketplace.

This position is people-oriented, involving development of high-level concepts for design projects and managing those through internal sell-in with senior leaders through to go-to-market execution. You will be responsible for collaborating with internal clients, understanding their needs, and developing creative concepts that can deliver quantified business outcomes. At times the role will require you to develop big ideas and design concepts; other times, you will be responsible for recruiting and managing third party vendors and in-house design and copy writing resources.

Your performance will be measured by positive improvements in the studio model, brand awareness and consideration, return on brand investments, ability to drive business outcomes through content and campaigns, as well as your ability to lead and partner with a high-performing cross-functional teams. This position requires someone who has proven creative leadership, brand and marketing experience, impressive design portfolio, a digital-first approach, a refusal to settle, innovative mind-set, and an approach of starting with the customer and working backwards. In this role, you’ll be part of developing and leading design and writing talent in an evolving environment.

Primary Responsibilities:

+ Develop in-house agency model that best supports the enterprise; leveraging technology to extend capacity and capability in an evolving environment

+ Lead creative process to ensure concepts are aligned with brand and business line strategy to advance brand perceptions and contributions to business outcomes.

+ Identify emerging brand and creative trends and treatments; integrate into U.S. Bank creative strategy and processes to maximize brand awareness, consideration and demand generation.

+ Drive brand consistency and activation across the enterprise, through an ongoing focus on staff engagement, creative processes and supporting tech and tools.

+ Partner with Brand & Creative leadership team to establish creative direction for the brand and evolve brand governance across the enterprise.

+ Partner with brand strategy to ensure a distinct brand voice that extends across all communication outlets – social media, dotcom, advertising, experiential, internal and external communications, etc.

+ Partner to maintain and advance digital asset management

+ Establishing a reliable creative process (concept >development >review >approval) that matches the timetable of the business.

+ Supervise and inspire a team of 15 – 20 internal creative professionals (designers, writers, photographers/videographers) and freelancer and vendor partners.

+ Working with strategy teams, social media marketing teams, designers and copywriters to develop concepts and present to management.

+ Determining the right mix of in-house vs. out-sourced creative development including photography, video and other creative assets.

+ Providing quality control and brand alignment over concepts and projects.

+ Leading creative sessions for project kick-offs and ideation.

+ Creative direct multiple projects from concept through completion

+ Managing the company’s digital assets (photography, videography) in the most cost-effective manner with accessible DAM tools.

+ Develop compelling concepts that support positioning and messaging narratives across different channels – matching the concept to the medium and audience.

+ Partner to position U.S. Bank through segment-specific campaigns that elevate the brand and support solution launches.

+ Ensuring team meets deadlines and stays within budget.

+ Interacts with leaders at: MC – 2 & 3 levels.

+ Role will report to the Head of Brand & Creative.

Skills and Preferred Qualifications:

+ 10+ years of experience leading creative teams

+ Digital-first brand and creative strategy and development experience

+ Strong working knowledge of experience design, brand development, and creative process.

+ Experience with GenAI and AI that extends and supports the creative development process

+ Experience leading hybrid creative teams, including on-shore, offshore talent

+ Degree in Marketing, Communications or Fine Arts or equivalent visual design and management experience required; graduate degree preferred

+ Financial service or other regulated industry experience preferred

+ Experience with content management systems (e.g., AEM, Milestone) to drive governance and management of brand assets

+ Experience working with workflow tools (e.g., Aprimo, Workfront) and video platforms (e.g., Brightcove) to streamline and manage creative and content marketing efforts

+ Knowledge and experience testing into latest genAI tools in support of creative and content velocity

If there’s anything we can do to accommodate a disability during any portion of the application or hiring process, please refer to our disability accommodations for applicants (https://careers.usbank.com/global/en/disability-accommodations-for-applicants) .

Benefits:

Our approach to benefits and total rewards considers our team members’ whole selves and what may be needed to thrive in and outside work. That’s why our benefits are designed to help you and your family boost your health, protect your financial security and give you peace of mind. Our benefits include the following (some may vary based on role, location or hours):

+ Healthcare (medical, dental, vision)

+ Basic term and optional term life insurance

+ Short-term and long-term disability