Strategy Director【外資系大手テックカンパニー担当】

Media Arts Lab is the bespoke global agency for Apple and only Apple.

We think different to create impact for the world’s most iconic brand.

The role of the Strategy Director is to provide strategic firepower and direction that unlocks creative opportunities for the brand.

The core remit is to consistently bring strategic thinking that keeps the agency two steps ahead, allowing us to push the work and the client meaningfully forward.

The Context

The agency’s Tokyo office is a foundational piece of our global network and provides a dedicated service to the Japanese market.

Originally established as a high-end adaption hub, taking global creative from our Los Angeles head office and localising it flawlessly, the market has evolved rapidly and the additional challenge is now to produce bespoke, locally relevant work that breaks through in Japanese culture.

The Strategy function is responsible for driving this ambition, setting the strategic agenda, and delivering creative opportunities across a broad, culturally-nuanced and important market to Apple.

Strategy at MAL operates as an interconnected network, viewing one brand through the similarities and distinctions of different markets across the world. Strategy is a challenging but ultimately rewarding role for someone who’s motivated by the opportunity to unlock what Apple means from both a business and creative perspective.

The role currently:
• functionally reports into our Asia Pacific regional strategy lead, Michaela Futcher, who is based in Singapore; and
• locally reports into our Managing Director, Taro Sato.

Your Remit & Responsibilities

• Market context — truly understand the market’s nuances and complexities. Live in them. Go deep and beyond the obvious in order to set the correct cultural context in which the work needs to live.

• Strategic opportunities — marry cultural appreciation of the market with the brand’s business challenges in order to identify opportunities where the agency can add impact. Craft compelling narratives that turn information and insights into an actionable story in the market.

• Killer creative briefs — turn insights into compelling briefs that inspire your creatives to solve the business challenges you’ve identified. Your briefs bring the insight to life and provide a framework that includes media approach and campaign structure.

• Creative briefings — set the tone for the creative development process by taking as much care in the initial briefing as went into the brief itself. Find fresh and innovative ways to engage creatives, even if the problems or platforms are familiar, providing the sharpest strategic springboard for the creative development process.

• A creative’s strategist — work hand-in-glove with creatives to foster an environment where strategic insights are brought to life and there’s a structure whereby strategy stays on the brief and helps to facilitate the ideation process.

• Create experiences in media — someone who intuitively understands digital platforms, channels and formats, and how to leverage them to bring interactive ideas to life throughout our origination work.

• Brand guardian — be guided by what is right for Apple, constructively debate the work, have a point of view, and then be able to clearly articulate and defend why something is right for the brand. Always ensure that the creative work is delivering against the problems that it was designed to solve.

• The global work — support the LA head office by sharing intel and feedback during the formulation of global work, and complete the loop by reporting back on impact via post-campaign analysis. Use this line of sight to proactively find opportunities for market-specific extensions that can make the global work work harder.

• Your focus — we are dedicated to Apple. Completely bespoke. We don’t engage with any other client and we certainly don’t pitch. This removes the new business pressure of a normal agency but instead, this is replaced by a creative ambition to continually deliver across Apple’s entire product and services portfolio.

• Market experts — the beauty of MAL Tokyo is that we can work on a market-specific level, one-step removed from Cupertino and the big global campaigns. This gives us a certain amount of licence to be a test ground, pushing and influencing Apple to engage with Japanese culture in different, potentially more meaningful ways.

• Methodology — demonstrate a rigorous approach by marshalling the tools, data, research opportunities, and the team at your disposal to turn information into valuable insights. Analyse learnings from previous campaigns and use them as a springboard for the next.

• Live and breathe ‘Media Arts’ — build the strongest possible partnership with OMD so that the client sees a united front from their agencies. Use this relationship to push the work in new and innovative ways to maximise its cultural impact.

• Able to understand the Apple context — Apple is inherently perfectionist in everything that it does and will not drop their creative standards at any time — as such, we need someone with maturity, dedication and sense of perspective to understand that in the context of a huge global organisation, there are processes to follow and you may have to go a few rounds to get the work to exactly where it needs to be.

• Naturally inquisitive — Be a source of continual inspiration by staying on top of the technology market, the online/ social environment, and the latest trends in consumer behaviour, creativity, music, art, and wider culture.

• Your opinion — always have a perspective, but hold it loosely. Bring interesting, insightful and useful thinking, but don’t seek to be right, seek to be effective.

• Adaptability — have the capacity to apply the same strategic approach and style across any of Apple’s markets as just Japan.

A Little More On Who We’re Looking For

• Substantial experience working on, or with, culture-driving brands and agencies.

• Relevant experience in the market with a proven track record of developing fully integrated advertising campaigns.

• A higher level, critical thinker who adds proactive business and marketing value to our client’s operations.

• A dynamic/ entrepreneurial approach — someone who wants to push the work strategically and creatively, even if that’s beyond the comfort zone of the familiar.

• A seasoned client handler who has the ability to develop meaningful and trusted relationships with clients at the most senior levels.

• An inspiring and influential presenter, capable of writing long-form but also able to distil content to the most salient points.

• A senior leader who has the experience and confidence to operate autonomously but who also knows the right moment to involve others.

• A resilient character who’s comfortable carving their own path and rolling with the punches along the way.

• A generous collaborator who helps nurture the craft skills and instincts of the junior members of the team, providing clear, concise and actionable feedback.

• Willingness to get your hands dirty and hustle — MAL is not a hands-off environment, we need someone always willing to dig in and go the extra mile for the good of the work.

• Passionate about culture, media and communication.

What We Believe

We believe that what MAL creates belongs to everyone; and everyone belongs at MAL.

We think creativity lives in open, safe and brave spaces, where diverse perspectives can come together, free of prejudice and discrimination.

We strive to be a partnership of equals. Everyone has a role to play here, and we invite you to bring your fully authentic and crazy selves to this space. Together, we’ll do the best work we’ve ever done.