Contract Strategy Director, Audience Insights

What to know

We’re looking for a freelance Strategy Director with a record of success in developing the strategy that underpins brand engagement programs, supporter experience, and creative development. 

You’ll uncover rich audience insights, develop frameworks, and craft strategies that help solve the world’s biggest challenges and drive positive progress in society. From leading the research and strategy development for a new climate change campaign, to getting involved in rapid ideation about how to respond to a humanitarian emergency, to helping brands formulate strategies and bring insights to their efforts to be more purpose-led, the work of a strategy lead at Blue State is diverse, stimulating and impactful. 

You’ll be a critical leadership voice on a team of multi-disciplinary colleagues including creative directors, communications strategists, analysts, technologists, and account directors.

We’re looking for an analytical and collaborative individual who is excited to work at a place where data-driven research is applied to shape strategies and campaigns. 

To see some of our work in practice, check out our work with Amnesty International, ONE.org, Ford, Oxfam International, and ProsperUS.

The company

Blue State is a purpose-driven agency. We partner with leading causes, brands, and campaigns and create real change. From Google and UNICEF to Amnesty International and Oxfam, we transform how brands and causes raise money, influence policy, build platforms, and grow communities of supporters. Led by the most creative and analytical minds from the political, nonprofit, and brand worlds, Blue State is a part of WPP Digital and has 150+ employees in the US and London.

A day in the life

Our briefs are always different and that makes the work interesting and exciting. But you can expect the role to involve a mix of the following:

• Leading research, discovery, and insight development processes that drive decisions around creative, messaging, and campaign design.
• Determining the right research methodology and strategic approach to a given client challenge and working collaboratively with other internal or external teams to make sure together we produce strategies and recommendations informed by data and research.
• Conducting or supporting the team with primary research (interviews, surveys, focus groups, creative testing) as well as secondary (desk research, landscape and trend analysis, using audience intelligence tools, social listening).
• Translating the findings into insights that are both inspiring and actionable, including a core strategic proposition, audience definition and prioritization, and clearly articulated objectives and KPIs. 
• Overseeing or delivering traditional business and marketing frameworks like SWOTs, personas, user journeys, gap analyses, landscape research, creative briefs, etc. 
• Facilitating and participating in brainstorming sessions, client presentations, workshops and overall project delivery.

The team

Good strategy is about taking the best possible journey to your ultimate destination and our Strategy Team is focused on plotting that course for our clients. As a contract Strategy Director, you’ll work closely with a cross-disciplinary group of Blue State employees who are passionate, geeky, and care about their clients and causes. We are a group of strategists that come from a wide range of backgrounds that collaborate to learn from the different approaches and contexts that can make our work better.

We love to understand what makes people tick, what the events of the day impact how people feel, and ultimately, what’s the perfect insight that would mobilize someone to take an action that moves us toward progress. You’ll have the opportunity to work with some of the most inspiring charities, ambitious brands, and passionate advocacy and social change campaigns.

Some things we're looking for

• You have 8+ years of relevant experience in a relevant role. 
• You are not a lone wolf. You genuinely enjoy bringing others along in the process of the work. 
• You have strong communication skills – able to explain your work clearly both in person, in writing and through compelling presentations. You have the ability to build trust and confidence in your work. 
• You have a mix of qualitative and quantitative research experience, using both primary and secondary methods. Bonus if you have familiarity with social psychology, cognitive science and/or behavioral economics frameworks and principles.
• You have experience utilizing social listening tools like Brandwatch and Audiense, and syndicated survey tools like GWI.
• You’re a thinker and a doer. You’re happy to roll your sleeves and spend time conducting interviews, focus groups or using audience intelligence tools, as well as championing the findings and building strategic recommendations around them.
• You have a curious and proactive mind. You like to use substantiated data to both identify and solve problems, with an eye for spotting new opportunities for how research and strategy can make projects stronger. You enjoy designing the right research methodology, be it via audience surveys, focus groups, social listening or desk research, while also switching seamlessly to writing an insightful creative brief. 
• You’re an experienced facilitator, managing ideation sessions and workshops with clients or colleagues in person and virtually.
• You’re resilient and able to adapt to new situations, solve problems on the fly, and communicate with those around you. Teamwork and scrappiness are required, with an agile approach to projects that may change course regularly based on results and the external environment requiring a pivot.
• You have a shared passion and curiosity for making change – and a commitment to quality that ensures we’re always making progress.
• You are steeped in the art of empathy and practice mutual respect. A commitment to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion is vital.

The salary range for this position is $75-$125 per hour; compensation will be commensurate with experience.

At Blue State, diversity is a necessity, not a nice-to-have. We encourage those from underrepresented communities — women, people of color, LGBTQIA+, immigrants, those with disabilities and people at all the intersections in between — to apply. Even if you don’t think your current skill set checks every box, but this role seems to align with your strengths, we want to hear from you.

Blue State is committed to creating an inclusive and accessible application and interview process. If you would like to request a reasonable accommodation for a disability, please contact us at [email protected] with the subject line: Accommodation Request to get started.