Director, Sponsorship Strategy, Sports - Brand Consulting

Creative Artists Agency•New York, NY

1d•Hybrid

About The Position

Creative Artists Agency (CAA) is seeking a Director, Sponsorship Strategy, Sports - Brand Consulting. This role will play a key part in high-profile client work and new business initiatives, leading the development and 'sell-in' of data and insight-driven Sports sponsorship strategies. The position involves advising C-suite clients on implementing these strategies across various media channels, sponsorship asset mixes, and consumer touchpoints. The candidate will collaborate with account teams, functional leaders (Creative, Analytics, Business Development, Experiential), inter-agency leaders, and directly with senior clients.

Requirements

Bachelor’s Degree in Marketing, Communications, Statistics or similar discipline.
8-10+ years of experience in brand, integrated communications, or connections planning.
Must have experience in sports.
Expertise in interpreting consumer research and data (quantitative & qualitative) and applying to solutions-based client strategies.
Exceptional verbal and written communication skills.
Strong analytical skills, ability to think critically and work collaboratively on fast moving projects.
Proven ability to manage multiple projects simultaneously, while being extremely detail-oriented.
Ability to influence, persuade and lead broader teams.
Excellent understanding of the composition and application of creative briefs.
Experience communicating and providing consultation and advice to clients, including running brainstorms, strategy and innovation workshops.
Ability to travel and attend work events outside normal business hours on an as needed basis.
Global experience or experience working on multi-market accounts.
Knowledge, passion and curiosity on all things sports and the surrounding culture.
Ability to confidently present plans, thought leadership and ideas to a senior leadership audiences (internal and external).
Experience working on new business pitches, to support when opportunities arise.

Nice To Haves

Experience planning social campaigns.
Experience with go-to-market planning or ecosystem thinking for campaigns.

Responsibilities

Develop and deliver overarching strategic vision grounded in data for client assignments, defining and prioritizing initiatives that directly support marketing/business goals and brand KPIs.
Work with Account teams around client briefings to qualify opportunities, shaping campaign deliverables and go-to-market strategies.
Partner closely with our Insights and Analytics teams to build and apply insight and data-driven personas, segmentation models, customer journeys and measurement frameworks.
Interpret category and consumer trends to inform cultural marketing, partnership, campaign and communication strategies, determining the roles of media and creative and ideal touchpoints needed to drive desired outcomes.
Develop overarching partnership strategy, including creative platforms and narrative, defining the role of partnerships within the broader brand and marketing ecosystem.
Create partnership portfolio analyses to identify the strategic role of partnerships and ensure alignment with overarching strategy, including partner selection, rights and asset utilization.
Create activation strategies to meet brand objectives/targets and design integrated campaign approaches across channels and touchpoints.
Develop ideas for optimizing existing activations to improve effectiveness, efficiency and cultural relevance.
Create topline negotiation strategies for potential partnerships, outlining value exchange, priority assets and key leverage points.
Act as a bridge between internal teams – Account, New Business, Data, Insights, Creative – facilitating optimal team outputs while balancing efficiency and effectiveness.
Brief and collaborate with internal and external partners (e.g. client’s IMC teams).
Develop and apply ownable positioning for brands within Sports, informing brand role, partner selection, rights and asset utilization, and creative activation.
Proactively pitch innovative ideas, new partners, new channels, and test and learn opportunities.
Cultivate relationships across CAA to find and promote new opportunities for clients.