Marketing Communications Manager II - Creative Services

As a visionary, mentor and branding leader, this position will help provide strategic design and communications insight, creative direction, and quality assurance oversight for all our integrated brand and marketing efforts creation?both internal and external. It will also strive to foster a responsible and appropriate creative emphasis in terms of leading and inspiring a staff of art directors, writers and designers.

The overall responsibilities fall under four key areas:
1. Own the IDEXX visual brand and its market positioning
2. Supervise and guide a team of creative professionals toward a vision of growing success
3. Champion strategic clarity, working with account executives and lines of business
4. As part of department leadership team, manage department administrative functions

PRIMARY DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES:
? Create and monitor brand guidelines, graphics standards and approved asset database worldwide. Develop, refine and monitor the visual and voice expression of the IDEXX master brand, product brands, branding systems, and brand architecture/hierarchy. Uses these tools to guide the creative team in delivering a clear, strong IDEXX brand in the marketplace.

? Provide leadership/vision to inspire and coach a team of 6-10 copy and design professionals to achieve creative excellence and distinction: materials with stopping power, successfully/uniquely bringing messages to life.

? Embrace customer and marketing insights to help guide strategies and ensure that all layouts and copy deliver on the strategy/creative brief before formal presentations.

? Maintain strong partnerships with outside advertising agencies and other creative and production vendors (as required) to extend the creative strategies and product execution.

? Review what the competition is doing on a regular monthly basis with sales and creative staff to see what is happening in the marketplace, and establish MarComm as a sustainable competitive advantage for driving IDEXX business.

? Establish leading practices and coach the team to successfully implement them. Drive the creative team?s efforts toward setting and attaining goals and process improvements that will enhance workflow and elevate execution success.


Requirements:

MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS:

EDUCATION: Bachelors degree or higher in graphic design / fine arts or communications.

EXPERIENCE: >15 years of design, art direction and resource management experience specifically related to creative problem-solving in the business-to- business or packaged-goods arena. Experience in any aspect of animal or human health a plus.

REQUIRED SKILLS AND ABILITIES:
? Strong, demonstrable brand management experience
? Proven excellence in design/conceptual/messaging ability
? Ferocious appetite to creatively solve communications problems within given brand guidelines
? Ability to establish strong partnerships with team, colleagues and senior management
? Creative flexibility to generate work in conjunction with creative peers; ability to let others shine, compliment good work, and give public credit when due
? Ability to understand internal target audience needs/motivations to deliver meaningful messages
? Player/coach mindset to rally and support creative production team; ability to ?spark? others to set goals and perform successfully in attaining them; proven people management skills
? Strong oral and written communications; honest, open and positive upward and sideways communication skills
? Skills in selling creative solutions to clients, and negotiating or compromising as needed
? Solid knowledge of communication distribution channels
? A motivated self-starter who ferrets out information needed to deliver exceptional, memorable, and high-impact presentations of corporate products, services, or messages
? Ability to learn technical information quickly and devise appropriate communication tools and strategies to effectively reach a number of audiences, including veterinarians, pet owners, poultry and livestock producers, water quality control managers, IDEXX investors, IDEXX employees and more
? Driver of successful brainstorming sessions and ability to deliver consistent ?Comp? formats and on-target presentations
? Promote and agree on methodology to measure impact and learning
? Ability to meet deadlines or communicate deviations of deadlines on a daily basis in order to manage expectations and avoid unpleasant surprises or delays
? Ability to put the needs of product and message ahead of desire for gratuitous creative
? Supervise the team?s evaluation of technology needs and work closely with the Traffic Manager to monitor and maintain productive workflow
? Some travel required (customer locations, trade shows, production locations, etc.)




To apply online, please use the following link:
Apply To IDEXX