Associate Creative Strategist

Associate Creative Strategist Towson, MD/ Remote USA

Come build your career. It takes great people to achieve greatness. People with a sense of purpose and integrity. People with a relentless pursuit of excellence. People who care about making things better For Those Who Make The World™. Sound like you? Join our top-notch team of approximately 43,500 diverse and high-performing professionals globally who are making their mark on some of the world’s most beloved brands, including DEWALT®, BLACK+DECKER®, CRAFTSMAN®, STANLEY®, CUB CADET®, and HUSTLER®.

As an Associate Creative Strategist, you’ll be part of our in-house advertising agency—aka the “SHOP,” helping shape compelling, insight-driven brand and campaign strategies across a portfolio of large-scale brands. This role is ideal for someone who is curious, collaborative, and eager to grow their strategic thinking in a fast-paced creative environment. The Associate Creative Strategist will partner closely with the Director of Creative Strategy as well as Brand, Creative, and Insights teams to develop strong strategic foundations for brand campaigns and new product launches.

This person will help translate audience understanding, cultural context, and business objectives into inspiring creative briefs, messaging strategies, and communications plans that drive effective and engaging work across the full marketing funnel.

• Support strategy development across large-scale brands, helping create approaches that can scale from the global to regional level.
• Write creative briefs that inspire both clients and creative teams, resulting in work that is insightful, strategically sound, thoughtfully designed, and sparks action.
• Build and maintain a strong understanding of the target audiences across our brands, working closely with the research team to stay connected to key learnings from both audience research and creative testing and communicate the most actionable insights to creative partners.
• Conduct independent research across competitive landscapes, category trends, culture, and consumer behavior to add depth, relevance, and supporting evidence to creative briefs and strategic recommendations.
• Review creative concepts and provide a clear point of view on how effectively they deliver against the creative strategy, including identifying opportunities for refinement or improvement.
• Contribute to 360° messaging strategies and communications plans, with an understanding of the full marketing funnel and how audiences engage across channels and touchpoints.
• Present strategic thinking in a way that is clear, disarming, convincing, and inspiring to cross-functional teams and stakeholders.
• Manage multiple projects and brands simultaneously, with guidance and support from the Director of Creative Strategy.

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent professional experience required.
• Master’s degree in Advertising, Marketing, Communications, or a related field; or 1-2 years of experience working as a Creative Strategist or in a similar strategic role within an advertising agency or in-house marketing team.
• Ability to synthesize research and insights into clear strategic direction and compelling briefs.
• Strong storytelling, writing, and presentation skills.
• Relevant work samples preferred, ideally in the form of a portfolio or personal website that clearly demonstrates strategic thinking through the core framework of challenge opportunity.
• Passion for branding, creativity, culture, and consumer behavior.
• Confidence working cross-functionally with Brand, Creative, and Insights teams.
• Strong research instincts and curiosity about trends, competition, and emerging cultural signals.
• A strategic mindset paired with a creative sensibility.
• Comfort presenting ideas and…