Position Description:

Global Job Title: Creative Director CEMA/WE

Reporting to: Executive Creative Director

Purpose of the role

The Creative Director is responsible for creatively overseeing the channel brands and short form content across Western Europe and CEMA Regions. They will be an expert in strategic thinking and devising strong propositions and creative responses that work across a variety of touch points – on air, print, digital and experiential. Working to the Executive Creative Director this role will continuously raise the creative bar and act as a guardian for the BBC Worldwide Brand and Channel Brands including BRIT, EARTH, FIRST, CBEEBIES, LIFESTYLE, ENTERTAINMENT, KNOWLEDGE AND HD.

The ideal candidate will have excellent experience in creating campaigns within a Broadcasting environment. They will be obsessed with clarity of briefs and have a track record of working with planners, programmers and marketers to ensure that the briefs provide clear direction to the creative teams. They will excel in providing inspiration and motivation and have a variety of techniques and strategies to produce award winning creative responses and executions. They will lead from the front, demonstrating best practice in ideation, writing and creative delivery.

The right candidate will have worked within an EMEA environment and understand the cultural sensibilities required to both create and reversion content for a local market. They will be skilled in producing well edited and reversioned trails as well as 360 campaigns - scaling the creative ambition and budget according to the priority and promotional currency. They will be used to running busy in house promotional teams and able to work with the Head of Production in promoting and ensuring a tightly managed, efficient operation.

The right person will be an effective leader, capable of managing teams and clearly defining expectations with strong communication skills and robust interpersonal skills in order to foster lasting relationships both within the team and the wider BBCW community.

Accountabilities

 Line management of the WE/CEMA creative team. Providing leadership and inspiration this role will assemble teams and lead the creative process with exceptional results. They will also be responsible for mentoring staff across the department to elevate the creative output.  Support channel programming and marketing teams by overseeing the creation and adaptation of on and off air assets to promote the channels and priority content, ultimately driving ratings to the channels.  Working in partnership with Heads of Marketing, ECD and Design Director to deliver brand and creative excellence across the channels.  Working closely with the Central Brand teams, be the guardian of the brands across WE and CEMA, ensuring consistent brand messages are delivered to audiences and affiliates.  Working closely with the Head of Production ensure smooth processes and workflow so creative requests are managed efficiently, that work is divided amongst the team equitably and that the team delivers all marketing materials required to support the channels in a timely manner.  Ensure that reversions are made to the highest standard and that process around reversioning are maintained, considering use of all pre-existing assets from Global Markets or Public Service.  When working on Global Campaigns, oversee all aspects of the creative process from response, scripting to execution ensuring that the creative idea will work across a variety of media – on air, digital, print, experiential and trade.  Responsible for identifying and hiring the best freelance talent in the industry.  Have an in depth knowledge of the legacy and new brands, overseeing all new channel launches and rebrands from creating bespoke launch spots to the application of new branding and on screen packages, ensuring that the creative requirements during rebrands are adequately met.  Working with media planning, oversee the cohesion and flow of the junction breaks, monitoring the brand and creative effectiveness of presentation elements including continuity, menus, end credit squeezes and brand architecture.  Understand the local markets, digesting research, monitoring trends and local events and always look for ways to make materials locally relevant. Be aware of differing cultural sensibilities and their creative consequences as well as practical localisation considerations in Graphics and Voice.  Understand promo allocation and currencies, always seeking to create content relevant to strategy and priority.  Manage bespoke filming, working with external creative and design agencies and high end post production, where relevant. Hold excellent relationships with agencies, able to secure high quality creative product at great value to the BBC.  Develop creative briefs for ideation sessions, lead creative ideation and brainstorm sessions, develop and vet ideas.  Work closely with the Executive Creative Director, Central Creative Director and regional Creative Directors to ensure that a Global creative community is fostered and campaign production can be shared where appropriate. Ensure that ideas, knowledges and best practice is shared within regional creative teams.

Scope & Impact

The Creative Director of CEMA/WE will be the main point of Creative contact for the marketing and business managers in region. Whilst supported creatively by the Executive Creative Director they will work independently in receiving briefs and allocating the creative team. Their remit will include all channels and territories within CEMA and WE, supporting on air, affiliate, sales and any revenue streams specific to their territories. Although they will not have budgetary management this role is expected to operate commercially and present solutions that work within regional expectations.

Strategic Planning & Decision Making

The Creative Director of CEMA/WE will be part of the media planning and channel planning process and will work closely with programming and marketing to support regional campaigns. They will be expected to understand the commercial environment within which the channels operate and tailor creative responses accordingly. They will also be expected to join the regional senior management teams in understanding the competitive environment and to keep abreast of ratings and local events and the impact on the creative output.

In addition to providing robust creative solutions, the Creative Director will also support the Head of Production in their operational remit and is expected to have a good understanding of on air collateral and technical delivery.

Relationships

LINE MANAGEMENT: EXECUTIVE CREATIVE DIRECTOR

TEAM MANAGEMENT: SENIOR CREATIVES, CREATIVES, JUNIOR CREATIVES

STAKEHOLDERS:

SVP CONTENT MARKETING & CREATIVE

REGIONAL HEAD (S) OF MARKETING

REGIONAL EVPS AND GENERAL MANAGERS

REGIONAL PROGRAMMING

DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS

PEERS:

HEAD OF PRODUCTION

CREATIVE DIRECTOR CENTRAL

DESIGN DIRECTOR CENTRAL

HEAD OF MEDIA PLANNING

REGIONAL HEADS OF CREATIVE

Knowledge & Skills

 Help formulate creative campaigns, with a demonstrable understanding of media planning, and communications strategy.  Experience in producing content with localised sensibilities, understanding regional variations and practical considerations when producing Global materials.  Experience of leading creative teams in development of Global Campaigns including TV, Digital, Press and PR, Print and Experiential.  Demonstrate track record of solving complex brand challenges; strong balance of traditional, innovative, experiential and social/digital experience; ability to creatively problem solve.  Exceptional oral and written communications skills, captivating presenter and great listener, strong negotiation, persuasion and diplomacy skills  Skilled at influencing and creating a collaborative approach across all departments and teams. Experiencing of running and facilitating idea session and bringing motivational management to the creative teams.  Experience of working with Art Directors and designers with the ability to direct design projects including rebrands and on screen packages.  Experience of managing multi language teams and delivery of a high volume of materials each month. A good technical understanding of broadcast operations including play out technology, able to petition for the uptake in technology in order to improve efficiency of systems.  Competent self-operating skills including a working knowledge of Avid, Final Cut or Premier. A creative and operational understanding of online, versioning, directing voiceovers and localisation. Able to manage post production staff if required.  Awareness of the BBC Brand and editorial framework and its relevance to content creation.  Experience working with Creative agencies and Facilities houses with a network of relationships and able to procure great value for BBC Worldwide.  Experience of working with planning teams and translating insights into targeted creative.

The person

 Strong agency, marketing consultancy experience.  Track record of managing and motivating teams to deliver excellent creative in challenging environments.  Proactive approach, a self-starter.  Must work well under pressure and keep to deadlines.  Exceptional communication and people skills.  Strong at relationship building.  Strong leadership skills.  Strong negotiation and conflict resolution skills.  Ability to monitor changes in the creative and marketing world in order to stay informed about latest thinking and new technologies in order to strive to be world class and employ game changing ideas.

Education

No specific educational requirements

Professional Experience

 Extensive senior experience of managing an on air creative team, within an EMEA environment.  An inspirational and motivational leader, a team player experienced in nurturing talent.  Extensive experience with excellent background in integrated marketing campaigns, media, brand strategy, experiential.  Track record of managing and motivating teams to deliver excellent creative in challenging environments.  Experience of developing creative strategies and positioning of branded properties.  Ability to monitor changes in the creative and marketing world in order to stay informed about latest thinking and new technologies in order to strive to be world class and employ game changing ideas.