Creative Director

ROLE: CREATIVE DIRECTOR
TEAM: THE KITCHEN NORTH AMERICA
LOCATION: TORONTO (HYBRID)

COMPANY OVERVIEW: 

The Kitchen is the in-house agency for Kraft Heinz. Based in Toronto & Chicago, we’re built to take iconic brands into a new era of marketing, powered by culture, creativity, and collaboration.  

What makes us different? The way we work. Our team of 90+ Creatives, Strategists, Producers, Designers, and Content Creators work directly with our brand partners to unlock creativity and deliver breakthrough social and digital ideas at the speed of culture.

ROLE OVERVIEW:

As Creative Director you will lead a creative team made up of a senior pair focused on social/digital activations, a junior team and content creators focused on agile and planned social content, and a team of supporting designers and resources tasked with making clever content that cuts through the noise on social.

As an experienced creative leader, you know how to have an impact on your team, and an ability to ensure every project they’re working on reaches its potential - from agile responses to online moments, to bigger concepts born from cultural trends. 

You’re more than a creative manager; you’re a teacher to other creative managers and talent. You know how to help a senior creative pair get the most out of their team. You’re able to show the junior creatives ‘the ropes’ and get them to a great idea that they feel passionate about. You are hands-on in contributing to ideas and producing great work.  

You’re always thinking about your team and its capabilities - addressing skill gaps, training talent, and making sure you’re holding them to a high standard.   

You’re an enthusiastic pitcher and want to be the creative face of the agency to your brand partners. 

RESPONSIBILITIES:

• You lead: You Inspire and direct a team of writers, designers, producers, social media/community managers and strategists to ensure a culture conducive to great work. You are responsible for growing, retaining, and motivating this team to succeed.  
• You’re adaptable: You demonstrate resiliency in a dynamic, fast-paced work environment where ideas and opportunities happen fast and require flexibility.   
• You hold your team to high standards: You ensure the highest level of creative quality from your team and for the brands you work with.  You understand how to give clear feedback that your teams can use to improve their work.  
• You manage and supervise multiple creative projects and workflows, sometimes bringing your creatives together, and sometimes focusing them on separate asks.  
• You direct the design and development of creative materials. 
• You ensure brand identity and message consistency across channels. 
• You care about being a good partner: meeting business objectives, values, budgets, and deadlines with work that makes you proud. You present work and develop relationships of value and respect with the team. 
• You will lead and participate in brainstorming sessions and bring interesting opportunities and trends to the team’s newsroom process.  
• You’re a hands-on creative, writing copy or designing against guidelines and brand tone of voice for film, print, digital and social as needed to support your team.  
• You lead teams and ensure strong and non-traditional creative output, collaborating with and working under the direction of the Head of Creative.  
• You help the agency develop a strong and positive relationship with the advertising community to help recruit top talent. 

EXPERIENCE & SKILLS 

• A proven track record of success in digital/social advertising.  
• An established leader with a track record of developing talent.  
• 8+ years’ experience in Advertising, social, or medium agnostic creative…. or a track record that shows why you’re ahead of your peers. 
• Strong Portfolio: You demonstrate originality, innovation, and multi-disciplinary thinking through your work. 
• International Recognition: You have created a world-class campaign that achieved international fame or won multiple international awards. 
• Leadership Skills: You demonstrate strong leadership skills and can organize, motivate, and improve the creative output of those around you. 
• Big Unconventional Idea Thinker: You go beyond the executional or tactical tasks and come up with innovative approaches that earn attention.   
• Team Player: You are positive, collaborative and a contagious spirit, who works well with others. 
• Entrepreneurial: You take initiative and proactively come to the table with new ideas to push forward the creative work and develop relationships with the team 
• Production Savvy: You know how to work within budgetary constraints and have experience working with photographers, directors, and vendors. 
• Time Management: You can manage your time, hit deadlines and be on time for meetings, while juggling multiple projects. 

The Kitchen, Kraft Heinz, and Salt are committed to Equal Employment Opportunity and to attracting and retaining the most qualified employees regardless of race, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, gender, age or disability.