Creative Strategist

MUD\WTR•Santa Monica, CA

2d•Remote

About The Position

The Creative Strategist is the strategic owner of MUD\WTR’s performance creative — responsible for turning customer insight, cultural signals, and performance data into ads that convert at scale. This role operates at the intersection of creative thinking, performance marketing, and operational execution. You are the brain behind our ads: defining angles, shaping narratives, writing scripts, and guiding creative direction across Meta, TikTok, YouTube, and emerging platforms. You’ll partner closely with Growth, Partnerships, Creative, and external creatives to ensure we’re producing a high volume of differentiated, high-performing creative — quickly, consistently, and intelligently. What sets this role apart is its dual focus on creative excellence and systems thinking. You’ll zoom in to understand why a specific hook is outperforming, why a narrative is fatiguing, or how a format shift changes engagement. You’ll also zoom out to see how individual ads stack to build the brand — shaping repeatable frameworks, scalable workflows, and a long-term creative point of view rooted in MUD\WTR’s mission and values, and designed to build trust, familiarity, and emotional resonance over time. AI is a core accelerator in this role — not as a replacement for creative judgment, but as a force multiplier. You’ll use AI tools to increase speed, expand ideation, and tighten feedback loops, while maintaining a high bar for creative quality and brand integrity.

Requirements

3+ years of experience in performance creative strategy, growth marketing, or a similar role within DTC ecommerce.
Proven track record of developing and scaling high-performing paid social creative.
Strong scriptwriting and storytelling skills with a deep understanding of hooks, pacing, and persuasion.
Experience working closely with paid media teams and using performance data to inform creative decisions.
Deep understanding of social platforms (Meta, TikTok, YouTube) and what performs natively on each.
Strong creative instincts paired with analytical thinking — able to identify patterns and extract insights.
Experience using AI tools to enhance creative workflows and increase output.
Excellent organizational and project management skills in a fast-paced, remote environment.
Clear written and verbal communication skills with the ability to articulate creative strategy and rationale.
Self-starter mentality with comfort owning ambiguous problems and building structure where needed.

Nice To Haves

Background in wellness, CPG, food & beverage, or subscription DTC brands.
Experience working with UGC creators and managing creator-driven pipelines.
Familiarity with performance reporting tools and creative performance analysis.
Understanding of full-funnel marketing and how creative impacts CAC, ROAS, and LTV.
Experience building creative systems, playbooks, or testing frameworks at scale.

Responsibilities

Own the strategy behind all performance creative and UGC advertising across paid channels.
Translate customer research, audience insights, and performance data into winning creative angles and messaging.
Analyze top-performing and underperforming ads to extract insights and inform iteration strategies.
Develop clear creative POVs for campaigns, product launches, and evergreen testing.
Partner with Growth to ensure creative strategy aligns with channel goals, funnel stage, and performance targets.
Write high-performing ad scripts, hooks, and narrative frameworks rooted in audience psychology.
Turn insights into compelling, conversion-focused stories that capture attention in the first seconds.
Build and work within modular script systems that allow for rapid testing of hooks, angles, CTAs, and formats.
Maintain and evolve a library of proven scripts, hooks, and creative frameworks based on performance learnings.
Champion creative experimentation to expand formats, messaging, and storytelling approaches.
Identify whitespace opportunities through competitive analysis, cultural trends, and performance gaps.
Push creative diversity to prevent fatigue and unlock new growth pockets.
Translate customer experiences and objections into fresh, authentic representations of the product and brand.
Use AI tools to accelerate ideation, scripting, iteration, and performance analysis.
Apply AI to generate script variations, refine copy, build mood boards, and synthesize insights.
Build and maintain a fast, iterative creative pipeline: insight → ideation → prototype → launch → analyze.
Balance automation with human creative judgment to improve both speed and strategic depth.
Run creative meetings, manage timelines, and keep projects moving with urgency and clarity.
Create alignment across creators, editors, growth, and creative leadership.
Allocate resources across team, tools, budget, and creators to maximize output quality and speed.
Continuously improve creative processes to reduce friction and increase consistency.
Share POVs on trends, testing learnings, and creative best practices that elevate overall team performance.