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We are working with FKQ Advertising in their search for a Creative Director based in Clearwater, Florida. You’ll love this Creative Director Job!
As one of our top clients, FKQ is a full-service ad agency that has been in business for 50 years. As true partners with their clients, FKQ goes beyond just providing strategy and purchasing media. They’re a seamless extension of their clients and provide any service that helps grow the client’s business. This kind of partnership leads to longstanding relationships that go back further than 25 years.
At FKQ, “Whatever It Takes” (WIT) is more than a philosophy. It’s in their DNA. It is the guiding principle they put into practice every single day. They explore. They discover new ideas. They bring strategic insight to life with a passion for great work and generating results.
HARRY’S COMMENTS: As FKQs Creative Director, you are the firm’s last line of defense. Colleagues will come to you with “almost (but not quite) great” ideas and ask for your input, and you’ll have to take their work to the next level. It could involve a missing ingredient. Or addition by subtraction. Or a slightly different approach. Or whatever.
At FKQ, being a great Creative Director means being a good psychologist: We want you to make the chain’s weakest link stronger and to make the entire department grow and flourish.
To do this, you will need to be both business oriented and well-versed in all crafts: from copywriting, to art direction, to design, illustration, and more. The client would prefer that candidates have a copywriting background, but you might also come from the art direction discipline.
Note! At EcommerceRecruiter.com, we know a thing or two about copywriting, so be prepared to discuss your favorite copywriters. We have a few of our own …
Regardless, you’ll need to love learning, because at FKQ, when you’re through learning, you’re through. It’s all about seeing the world through FKQ’s clients’ customers’ eyes, selling to carefully targeted consumers with a logic and emotion they can relate to.
In the role of Creative Director, the ego can be a cruel mistress. It’s never about you. It’s always about somebody else. If it isn’t, you are in the wrong line of work.
Yet paradoxically, being a great Creative Director at FKQ will require knowing when to trust your instincts – as well as knowing when somebody else has a better idea. It will also involve knowing when NOBODY has the right idea, and having the discipline to start all over again. Even when that means staying late.
Doing your own homework: An essential part of this Creative Director job.
Are you research minded, and do you approach the creative process with a time of academic rigor? Good! Because at FKQ, that stuff matters. A lot. The client is not looking for someone to wing it. FKQ wants someone who isn’t afraid to ask tough questions about their client’s philosophies, product(s), business, industry, competitors, customers, and customers’ customers – and bring that information to bear on a reality-based creative process.
There’s a difference between creative that hits hard because it’s right, versus hitting hard based on cheap, shock value. (Jerry Seinfeld understands this.)
The challenge is to create brilliant campaigns while inspiring others to rise to your level of excellence. The word “inspiring” is critically important. When your team is inspired, it doesn’t fear the unknown. It doesn’t fear looking stupid. It doesn’t prematurely judge ideas. And it is not unproductively attached to old ideas and past successes.
In short, the team embraces growth: Personally. Professionally. Creatively.
In baseball, one of the primary benefits of acquiring a .300 hitter is that invariably, that player will lift the batting average of everyone else in the dugout. World-class CD’s are like that. They don’t whine, complain, or make excuses. They come early and stay late. They carefully study the industry trends, and they work really hard. More than anything, A-players realize that leadership isn’t a rank. It’s a responsibility.
During the interviews for this position, here are the things about which we want you to have a teachable point of view:
- 5 things that will bring a creative concept to life.
- 5 things that can get in the way of a great concept.
- 5 things that won’t turn a bad concept into a great one.
- 5 things that, if done well, can make sure a great concept gets the attention it deserves.
Important Qualities:
- Energetic, motivator of people
- Big idea visionary
- Guide and mold the creative process
- Accountability and responsibility for creative product
- Enjoy mentoring and nurturing team
- Excellent client presentation skills
- Highly conceptual!!
Key Experience:
- Preferably from copywriting background, but could also be art direction background.
- Work on all size accounts. Big budget to down-and-dirty.
- Creative product driven from strong strategic development
- Well versed in all mediums (Interactive, Direct, Print, Broadcast, Out of Home). More skewed Interactive is desired!
- Presentation skills – must have substantial amount of experience presenting to clients and have ability to mentor/train other creatives to make presentations
- Creative Team Administrator – Manage creative department budgets and personnel reviews.
FKQ Portfolio
- Current client roster includes local, regional, national and global brands in a variety of categories
- Our window to the world is fkq.com, so check it out.
Applications for this position are being coordinated by Allan Seibert. To apply, CLICK HERE. Candidates, please be sure to email Allan for a packet of market research and company / competitive intel that will differentiate you in your candidacy. Due to the intensely competitive nature of this search, thorough preparation for these interviews with this proprietary material is strongly recommended.
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