Associate Creative Director, Art

Associate Creative Director, Art

For over 50 years, Cossette has been behind some of the biggest, most influential brands in Canadian culture. In fact, 98.5% of Canadians see our work every day. Which means, your parents too probably.

So if you want to impress your parents while doing the best work of your career, well…you know what to do.

About the role:

The Associate Creative Director is a burgeoning creative leader. A guide to creative teams on smaller accounts or specific campaigns, who also actively contributes to conceptual development. As a crucial bridge between senior creative leadership and day-to-day execution, ACDs ensure the creative vision is translated effectively and craft is maintained. They have to be strong conceptual thinkers. They must hold design in the highest regard.

And they’ve got to be eager to and capable of mentoring junior talent, focusing on the development of big ideas and their cross-channel execution.

Transparency matters to us. For this role, you can expect a salary between $,000 annually, depending on experience. This is for an existing vacancy

Key Responsibilities:

• Strategic Thought: Dive into client briefs to develop a deep understanding of strategic insights and marketing objectives to ensure that the creative solution that comes from that brief is relevant and effective, and that ideas have maximum impact.
• Natural Curiosity: Beyond traditional research methods, know how AI tools like Google Gemini can be used to quickly gather the consumer insights and competitive analysis that can spark great thinking.
• Conceptual Development: Actively participate in and lead brainstorming sessions to come up with original and compelling channel-agnostic creative concepts. Then, bring those concepts to life across different platforms (digital, social, TV, OOH, etc.), regularly use creative tools, like Google Gemini, Adobe Firefly and VEO3 for rapid ideation, concept exploration, and generation of a wide range of creative variations for integrated campaigns.
• Creative Direction: Provide day-to-day creative guidance and feedback to Art Directors and Copywriters, ensuring the work is aligned with the overall creative vision and strategic objectives, and optimized for multi-channel delivery. Guide teams on the effective and ethical use of Google Gemini, Adobe Firefly and VEO3, fostering their familiarity with the capabilities of these platforms.
• Execution & Craft: Make great work. Oversee its execution across various channels, ensuring excellent craft, attention to detail, and brand consistency, being hands-on when necessary. Utilize technology and software features to streamline production tasks while maintaining a critical eye for quality and brand alignment across integrated campaigns.
• Problem Solving: Find the challenge within the challenge. Dig deep to identify and solve creative challenges during the development and production phases for integrated campaigns.
• Client Interaction: Present smart, integrated creative work to clients (with or without a CD), articulating creative rationales, and effectively listening to and managing client feedback.
• Mentorship: Be excited to mentor and guide more junior creatives, particularly Art Directors. Lead by example and help them develop their skills and understanding of the creative process, including proficiency in channel-agnostic thinking, multi-platform execution, and contemporary creative tools like AI.
• Represent Cossette:
  As part of the agency’s creative leadership, you lead by example and with optimism. You’re an ambassador for Cossette, both internally and externally. You celebrate our people, our successes and those of our client partners.

Skills & Qualifications:

• 7+ years of experience as an Art Director in the advertising industry (at least 2 years at a senior level).
• An inspiring portfolio that shows your conceptual strength and exceptional art direction with an array of ideas that have successfully translated across multiple channels.
• Proven ability to work effectively in a team and even lead small creative groups in integrated campaign development.
• Excellent conceptual skills and a deep understanding of how to turn big ideas into…