What to know

We’re looking for a seasoned leader with a record of success in developing the strategy that underpins brand engagement programs, supporter experience, and creative development. You’ll uncover rich audience insights, develop frameworks, and craft strategies that help solve the world’s biggest challenges and drive positive progress in society, working across a diverse range of clients and topics. From leading the research and strategy development for a new climate change campaign, to getting involved in rapid ideation about how to respond to a humanitarian emergency, to helping brands formulate strategies and bring insights to their efforts to be more purpose-led, the work of a strategy lead at Blue State is diverse, stimulating and impactful. 

You’ll be a critical leadership voice on a team of multi-disciplinary colleagues including creative directors, communications strategists, analysts, technologists, and account directors.

We’re looking for an analytical and collaborative individual who can inspire, mentor, and train people across the agency and evolve our Strategy practice. You’ll work closely with senior business leads to grow our client portfolio and strengthen our existing partnerships. 

To see some of our work in practice, check out our work with Amnesty International, ONE.org, Ford, Oxfam International, and ProsperUS.

The company

Blue State is a purpose-driven agency. We partner with leading causes, brands, and campaigns and create real change. From Google and UNICEF to Amnesty International and Oxfam, we transform how brands and causes raise money, influence policy, build platforms, and grow communities of supporters. Led by the most creative and analytical minds from the political, nonprofit, and brand worlds, Blue State is a part of WPP Digital and has 150+ employees in the US and London.

A day in the life

Our briefs are always different and that makes the work interesting and exciting. But you can expect the role to involve a mix of the following:

• Leading research, discovery, and insight development processes that drive decisions around creative, messaging, and campaign design.
• Partnering with business development, account, and creative teams to determine the right research methodology and strategic approach to a given client challenge and working collaboratively with other internal or external teams to make sure together we produce strategies and recommendations informed by data and research.
• Conducting or supporting the team with primary research (interviews, surveys, focus groups, creative testing) as well as secondary (desk research, landscape and trend analysis, using audience intelligence tools, social listening).
• Translating the findings into insights that are both inspiring and actionable, including a core strategic proposition, audience definition and prioritization, and clearly articulated objectives and KPIs. 
• Overseeing or delivering traditional business and marketing frameworks like SWOTs, personas, user journeys, gap analyses, landscape research, creative briefs, etc. 
• Identifying trends and opportunities to innovate our research methodologies to meet emerging needs, experimenting with new approaches or tools to push our insights practice forward, and training other team members.
• Facilitating and participating in brainstorming sessions, client presentations, workshops and overall project delivery.
• Growing and manage client portfolio through regular account planning activities, and creating client roadmaps over months and years where appropriate.
• Crafting and pitching new business as well as representing Blue State via event participation and other thought leadership. 
• Mentoring and upskilling team members.

The team

Good strategy is about taking the best possible journey to your ultimate destination and our Strategy Team is focused on plotting that course for our clients. As a part of the Strategy team, you’ll work closely with a cross-disciplinary group of Blue State employees who are passionate, geeky, and care about their clients and causes. We are a group of strategists that come from a wide range of backgrounds that collaborate to learn from the different approaches and contexts that can make our work better.

We love to understand what makes people tick, what the events of the day impact how people feel, and ultimately, what’s the perfect insight that would mobilize someone to take an action that moves us toward progress. You’ll have the opportunity to work with some of the most inspiring charities, ambitious brands, and passionate advocacy and social change campaigns.

What we offer

• Unlimited time-off (inclusive of sick, personal, and vacation days)
• $1,000 annually in professional development funds
• Competitive health, dental, and vision insurance
• Inclusive family planning coverage, including fertility, surrogacy, and adoption benefits
• Flexible and health savings accounts
• 401K & employer match
• Generous paid holiday schedule
• 12-week fully-paid parental leave for all parents-to-be
• Short-term and long-term disability insurance
• Pre-tax commuter benefits
• Remote work flexibility

We approach in-office working with a hybrid model. On-site presence is welcome for US staff who are within commuting distance of the NY or DC office. Managers retain discretion to require in-person attendance for folks on their discipline or client teams as necessary, including for those whose roles require them to be in person. To enter our US offices or attend Blue State events, staff and visitors must be fully vaccinated against COVID-19, including with a booster shot when eligible. Exceptions for protected grounds will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis.

The salary range for this position is $140,000-$160,000; compensation will be commensurate with experience.

Some things we're looking for

• You have 12+ years of relevant experience in a relevant role. 
• You are not a lone wolf. You genuinely enjoy bringing others along in the process of the work. 
• You have command of a room and superb presentation skills. You have the ability to build trust and confidence in early interactions with stakeholders at the highest level, and you understand the art of how to sell great ideas and great work. 
• You have a mix of qualitative and quantitative research background, using both primary and secondary methods. 
• You’re a thinker and a doer. You’re happy to roll your sleeves and spend time conducting interviews, focus groups or using audience intelligence tools, as well as championing the findings and building strategic recommendations around them.
• You have a curious and proactive mind. You like to use substantiated data to both identify and solve problems, with an eye for spotting new opportunities for how research and strategy can make projects stronger. You enjoy designing the right research methodology, be it via audience surveys, focus groups, social listening or desk research, while also switching seamlessly to writing an insightful creative brief or facilitating ideations and workshops with clients or colleagues.
• You’re resilient and able to adapt to new situations, solve problems on the fly, and communicate with those around you. Teamwork and scrappiness are required, with an agile approach to projects that may change course regularly based on results and the external environment requiring a pivot.
• You have a shared passion and curiosity for making change – and a commitment to quality that ensures we’re always making progress.
• You are steeped in the art of empathy, practice mutual respect, and will act as a role model at Blue State. A commitment to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion is vital.

At Blue State, diversity is a necessity, not a nice-to-have. We encourage those from underrepresented communities — women, people of color, LGBTQIA+, immigrants, those with disabilities and people at all the intersections in between — to apply. Even if you don’t think your current skill set checks every box, but this role seems to align with your strengths, we want to hear from you.

Blue State is committed to creating an inclusive and accessible application and interview process. If you would like to request a reasonable accommodation for a disability, please contact us at [email protected] with the subject line: Accommodation Request to get started.