Brand and Communications Strategist - NY or LA

RoAndCo is a multi-disciplinary design studio devoted to holistic branding that serves a range of fashion, beauty, tech, and lifestyle clients to create beautiful, meaningful and responsible brands. Led by award-winning Creative Director Roanne Adams, RoAndCo offers design, image and branding capabilities across a variety of mediums, from digital to moving image. By thoughtfully distilling a client’s inspirations, ideas, and motivations, RoAndCo generates fresh, sincere, compelling brand messages that engage and resonate.

RoAndCo is committed to providing an environment of mutual respect where equal employment opportunities are available to all applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex, pregnancy (including childbirth, lactation and related medical conditions), national origin, age, physical and mental disability, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, genetic information (including characteristics and testing), military and veteran status, and any other characteristic protected by applicable law. RoAndCo believes that diversity and inclusion among our organization is critical to our success as a company, and we seek to recruit, develop and retain the most talented people from a diverse candidate pool.

RoAndCo is looking for an experienced and exemplary Brand Strategist to join our New York or Los Angeles team.

Responsibilities

We are looking for a skilled and solutions-oriented Brand Strategist with a strong strategic mind to craft compelling brand stories and strategies that deliver results. The ideal candidate should be passionate about creating holistic brand experiences for a wide range of clients, possess strong research skills, an analytical mindset and be an excellent storyteller.

• Conducting extensive research (both primary and secondary) to uncover insights on the competitive, market, cultural consumer and brand landscapes, across all clients 
• Analyzing findings to identify trends, insights and develop a deep understanding of fashion, beauty and technology industry 
• Making recommendations based on research findings, presenting to clients and briefing creatives
• Leading ideation and brainstorming sessions – working with team to brainstorm big ideas and creative platforms 
• Developing brand architecture, positioning, purpose, and tone of voice
• Writing compelling brand stories
• Working with the team to build brand houses that ladder up to purpose
• In partnership with Account team, developing campaign rollout toolkits and communications messaging
• Supporting New Business proposal development and participate in pitches as needed
• Development of strategic storylines for both campaign and brand including creative briefs 
• Writing and experience leading client meetings & presenting strategic decks to clients. Client-facing abilities required, as developing strong business relationships with all client members is key to this role
• Work with Account and Design teams to ensure overall success of projects based on client objectives 
• Support the Creative Director and champion the design team’s concepts and ideas throughout the project lifecycle 
• At the end of a project create a Case Study with other departments - lead the strategic component 
• Deliver projects on time allowing plenty of room for reviews and crafting of presentations 
• Manage and have a positive impact on projects, teams and clients by providing clear direction and vision 
• Promote supportive and organized communication for the overall team 
• Manage conflict, incite discussion, and help make decisions in relation to managing clients and the team 
• Always act in a professional, courteous manner with co-workers and clients 
• Proactively determine issues in relation to any of the above areas and work with appropriate management to develop solutions and relay them to the team 

Social & Environmental Accountability

RoAndCo is committed to incorporating Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI) & Sustainability into everything we do as a studio. 

• BS understands the importance of DEI with regard to hiring practices and will keep this top of mind if asked to aid in making personnel decisions.
• BS is responsible for keeping abreast of sustainability topics as they relate to the industry and project at hand, and will bring environmental responsibility into the conversation with the team and with clients whenever relevant and appropriate. 
• We choose a different team member to chair our DEI & Sustainability groups each month, BS will be called upon to chair these meetings from time to time.
• BS will participate in formal DEI & Sustainability training sessions to further education to help enable us meet our respective company goals.

Cultural Competency

Ensuring that our work is culturally competent is crucial. While cultural competency is an ongoing conversation for all team members & departments to engage in as projects develop, cultural competence often begins with or may hinge upon the project’s lain strategy.

• BS understands the importance of ensuring the cultural competency of the work as strategy is initially developed, further built on, and implemented. Specifically:
• Alongside the Account team, BS will help to foster and maintain an environment that empowers all members of the team to speak up and share thoughts or concerns with regard to potential cultural competency issues. This environment serves to strengthen our work, as well as the manner in which the team thinks & works together as a whole. 
• BS recognizes that data and targeting tools can be limiting, and is committed to going beyond the data to understand the cultural aspects of a given project, thoughtfully exploring lesser-known or more complex cultural components or issues that may exist in the real world, but aren’t revealed from data alone.
• BS will seek out, respectfully engage with, and uplift the voices of those who authentically represent the experience of the given community or group we want to engage. This is of particular importance when the work is focused upon or relates to an audience that you or your team don’t already know or understand well, and/or if diversity isn’t well-represented within a given project’s team. 
• BS will work with Creative to ensure that the cultural competency components discovered in strategy are accurately reflected throughout the creative work, as well as as the strategy.

Requirements

• 3+ years of experience in creating & presenting brand and communication strategy for marketing campaigns, brand design and ecommerce / digital communications. 
• Excellent writing, communication & presentation skills. In a client-facing role, you must be able to conduct brand strategy workshops, speak to our work and ask the right questions
• Ability to speak from a strategic standpoint to aid in crafting of creative concepts that successfully reflect the message and outwardly communicable points of the underlying strategy
• Attuned to culture through a diverse, intersectional lens with a broad understanding of past influences, current trends, and future forecasts

Personal Attributes

• Open and empathetic to others 
• Conscious of ego, always open to collaborating with and listening to others 
• Works proactively and provides support to their fellow team members
• Interest and/or experience in the fashion, luxury, lifestyle businesses
• Passionate and excited about new technology