Freelance Senior Creative Strategist / Planner (Austin)

About Hill & Knowlton

Hill & Knowlton is the global strategic communications leader for transformation. We help brands, businesses and leaders build reputation, manage risk, and create breakthrough opportunities for growth.

Founded in 1927, today's Hill & Knowlton operates 70 offices in over 30 countries, providing advisory, public relations and creative solutions to local and global clients. Our global team offers integrated strategic services, grounded in deep sector expertise, and enabled by creativity and intelligence. Headquartered in New York, Hill & Knowlton is part of WPP, one of the world's largest communications services groups.

At Hill & Knowlton our belief is that the agency is a canvas for everyone to write their own story. This job description is written at a moment in time; whatever role you take at Hill & Knowlton we expect you to evolve that role; it should be different tomorrow than it is today and set new standards in the industry.

Our business combines vertical sectors focused on deep industry knowledge with a number of specialist areas that work horizontally across those sectors. One areas of specialist expertise is our Creative Strategy.

We're looking for a Freelance Senior Creative Strategist to support our VP of Creative Strategy. The ideal Freelancer has 5-7 years agency experience, comes from a Strategic Planner or Strategist background and will work with the VP, Creative Strategy to execute all elements of strategy across all accounts as well as new business efforts.

Responsibilities include:

• Research: You will have extensive experience in what we call "smart" research.
  
  Whether through primary or secondary, knowing what questions and hypotheses will get you to the stickiest insights is crucial. Sometimes you'll be partnering with the research team and should know how to provide a juicy research brief and/or be able to dive in alongside them and help where needed. We don't like to boil the ocean, so finding the right balance of audit vs analysis is important.

• Insight development: You'll learn our process and become a master of it - especially in the realm of insights.
  
  You should have experience in writing fresh insights based on research, industry knowledge, human behavior and other stimuli that lead to great work. You should also have the listening skills of a therapist - hearing a tension or an insight-in-hiding just waiting to be pulled out of a group brainstorm or conversation.

• Ideation: Our Creative Strategy team and the Creative development team work together closely.
  
  You should be able to bridge the distance between strategy and creative and be able to flex the ideation muscle. Coming up with platforms, campaigns, tactics, messaging should all be within your wheelhouse.

• New Business: You'll have experience leading or co-leading pitches from a creative perspective. Often times we'll balance more than one pitch while working across several accounts so being able to brain-flex from one brief to another in a day is important.

• Client management: You'll be interacting with clients and should be able to sell in creative strategy as well as ideas. You'll have experience in managing tough clients who push back and question the work, ultimately being able to coach them in the right direction or pivot where needed.

• Writing and presentation skills: What's a story if no one can understand it?
  
  You should be able to write up an approach, insights, or creative frameworks easily and should be able to present comfortably to senior internal teams as well as clients. Extreme attention to detail, an understanding of storytelling techniques and creative writing should all be your bread and butter.

The compensation for this position at the time of this posting is $80.00 - $110.00 per hour. Individual compensation varies based on job-related factors, including business needs, experience, level of responsibility and qualifications. We offer a competitive benefits package, click here for more details - https://mybenefits.wpp.com/ .

Hill & Knowlton is more than an agency. It's a collection of thousands of brilliant, collaborative and driven employees - all united around a single vision of transforming our clients, our company and the world.

Across 70 offices in 30 countries our people are the heartbeat of our business. Bridging countless cultures, backgrounds and lived experiences, we are drawn together by a common drive and a collaborative spirit - called to our craft each day by the desire to deliver the best work.

And at H&K, diversity, equity and inclusion are not just values; they are strategic imperatives that fuel our future in an industry built on the art of understanding, connecting and developing relationships. We believe that a diverse workforce is essential for inspiring bold ideas, fostering constructive dialogue and cultivating meaningful experiences that drive innovation and creativity.

As an Equal Opportunity Employer, Hill & Knowlton does not discriminate against applicants or employees because of their race, creed, color, age, religion, sex, disability, sexual orientation, marital status, military status, national origin, or ancestry.

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