Agency Communications Strategist

Marks is hiring an Agency Communications Strategist for our Marks Chicago facility!

Agency Overview:

Marks is a brand design and experience agency that is uniquely constructed to enable brands to win in an age of constant change. Fueled by our dual vantage points – embedded partners and future-forward experts – we build brand momentum to move fast, move forward, and move confidently.

As a full-service agency, our expertise extends across all facets of the branding spectrum: strategy, innovation, design, adaptation, integrated marketing communications. Together, we are 600+ people across 12 studios and 8 countries.

Marks is part of SGS & Co, a brand impact group built with the agility and inventiveness that enables our clients to thrive. Our sister company, SGS, is an integrated packaging and marketing company. Together, we shift brands to impact.

Primary Purpose:

Represent Marks and support our ever-evolving business needs by developing communications materials in partnership across agency offices globally. Become an instrumental brand steward of Marks — SGS & Co’s global design offer — advocating the value of our work to help brands develop, grow, and excel.

As the Agency Communications Strategist, you’ll be responsible for expressing the agency’s brand voice across social media, content on our website, new business presentations, publications, and awards submissions, globally.

The Agency Communications Strategist is a key collaborator and will need to align seamlessly with lead stakeholders to present one voice —a unified agency POV — in external agency communications, social media, and marketing collateral aimed at existing and new clients, as well as potential hires. You’ll plan and lead the creation of effective, high-quality content to deliver on-brand client engagement.

Responsibilities include, but are not limited to: managing and driving editorial calendar (social media, awards submissions, new project launch highlights, etc.), working with internal teams to generate thought leadership and create online post/social media content, tracking the success of marketing initiatives, and following industry events and shifts.

Detailed Role Responsibilities:

AGENCY BRAND STEWARDSHIP:

• Act as a brand steward, ensuring all content and materials are “on brand” -- using brand tone of voice and visual style -- to drive consistency across agency communications 
• Develop persuasive, accurate, branded copy that endorses agency attributes while capturing unique capabilities of individual teams and offers 
• Become an advocate for our work – track our successes after project launches to ensure we know how our work performs once in market 
• Identify and track opportunities to elevate our agency presence: award entries, thought leadership pieces, conference sponsorships, etc.

STRATEGY:

• Develop an editorial calendar and own regular cross-functional team editorial meeting.
• Ensure agency communications are aligned and on-brand 
• Be curious and enrolled in our industry and our clients’ businesses – track sparks, trends, and shifts to influence and improve our approach 
• Keep up-to-date with popular culture and trends and best-in-class practices for like agencies and be comfortable innovating to get to new best-in-class practices 
• Entrepreneurial, creative problem solver

CONTENT OWNERSHIP:

• Social media: With support from our social strategists, lead our social media efforts – editorial calendar, content generation and coordination, analytics. 
• Website: Manage postings and content on our website (squarespace-based) 
• Interface with senior leadership to extract thought leadership (ghost writing) and develop calendar of white paper topics to support agency growth 
• Case studies: Partner with project teams to understand all project details, identify key business drivers, and translate them into compelling and meaningful (and on-brand) story. Manage creation of new case studies and maintain vault of case studies and other new business assets for ease of use by teams across offices.

INITIATIVE LEADERSHIP:

• Coordinate and communicate across global offices and teams 
• Organize initiatives, create project timelines and action plans to move opportunities forward and align cross-functional teams 
• Be a self-starting multi-tasker, comfortable working on several deliverables at once, sometimes under pressure and often to tight deadlines 
• Be ready to adapt and shift gears, as agency needs and demands can often evolve or take on new directions quickly

COMMUNICATION;

• Passionate, compelling, and professional storytelling and presentation skills 
• Excellent interpersonal and communication skills, both written and verbal 
• Demonstrated ability to communicate, present, and influence marketing and communications strategy decisions credibly and effectively at all levels of the organization 
• Comfort and experience working with remote teams

TEAM PARTICIPATION:

• Passionate: eager to contribute, collaborate, learn, and grow 
• Agile and flexible: interested in solving problems creatively and defining new solutions 
• Willing and excited to dive in headfirst to become a ‘fast expert’ on any topic

Minimum Requirements:

• Bachelor’s Degree in a relevant field (Marketing, Communications, Design, etc.) 
• 3-5 years (minimum) experience in brand strategy, marketing, or corporate communications
• 1-2 years (minimum) working within a design or marcom agency 
• Experience with brand strategy, PR and/or business development preferred 
• Experience and familiarity with creative brand building and CPG, food/beverage/wine/spirits, technology strongly preferred 
• Some experience in brand strategy tools and verbal brand development: brand voice, copy development, communication strategy, etc. 
• Excellent conceptual thinking skills 
• Fluency with Keynote/Mac OS and Adobe Creative Suite. 
• Squarespace proficiency (light)

Qualifications:

Education Required -

• Bachelors or better in Marketing or related field.

Experience Required -

• 3-5 years: Years (minimum) experience in brand strategy, marketing or corporate communications 
• 1-2 years: Years (minimum) working within a design or marcom agency