Creative Director - Copywriter

Overview

• The Creative Director — Copywriter is a senior creative leader responsible for translating the creative ambition of the Publicis/client partnership into distinctive, effective and culturally relevant ideas and storytelling.
• The role leads conceptual development, messaging, tone of voice and narrative craft across major briefs, campaigns, platforms and experiences, while guiding and mentoring multi-disciplinary creative teams.
• A critical part of the mandate is to combine strong writing and conceptual craft with digital-first thinking, culture, technology, AI and new content models, ensuring ideas can live coherently across channels and customer journeys.
• The role is accountable for conceptual strength, verbal craft, integrated execution, creative team leadership and client confidence.

Responsibilities

CREATIVE LEADERSHIP & DIRECTION

• Help set and uphold the creative standard for the client/Publicis partnership, working closely with the Executive Creative Director.
• Lead concept development, messaging and narrative direction across major integrated campaigns, brand platforms, digital experiences and content ecosystems.
• Provide clear, constructive direction to creative teams and protect the core idea and tone through execution and rollout.
• Lead brainstorms and creative workshops, creating the conditions for ambitious ideas to be challenged, improved and delivered.
• Remain deeply connected to South African culture, language, consumer behaviour, media and global creative trends.

SENIOR CLIENT & BUSINESS PARTNERSHIP

• Build trusted creative relationships with client stakeholders and confidently present and sell creative thinking.
• Understand the client's business, brand, customers and growth priorities sufficiently to interrogate briefs and identify creative opportunities.
• Translate creative choices into clear business and customer rationale.
• Respond constructively to client feedback while protecting the integrity and ambition of the creative product.

CREATIVE PRODUCT EXCELLENCE

• Drive platform-neutral conceptual thinking with a strong focus on copy, storytelling, tone of voice and idea articulation.
• Define and protect campaign narratives, messaging hierarchies and verbal identity.
• Ensure every major piece of work has a clear idea, strong strategic foundation and appropriate level of writing craft.
• Create across film, radio/audio, social, digital, content, experience, retail, CRM and emerging formats.
• Develop compelling presentations, scripts, headlines, manifestos and idea narratives that make the work easy to understand and buy.
• Use audience, performance and cultural learning to strengthen future creative output.

INTEGRATION & POWER OF ONE CREATIVE LEADERSHIP

• Work seamlessly with Art Direction, Strategy, Media, Data, Technology, Experience, Production, PR and Activation to create genuinely integrated solutions.
• Ensure integrated thinking happens at the start of the process rather than being assembled after ideas are developed.
• Build ideas that travel coherently across channels while adapting tone and format to platform behaviour.
• Help remove discipline and agency silos that limit the quality or effectiveness of the work.

AI, TECHNOLOGY & FUTURE-FIT CREATIVITY

• Champion responsible use of AI in ideation, research, writing exploration, prototyping, content variation and optimisation.
• Use generative AI to increase exploration, speed and personalisation without compromising originality, brand voice or human judgement.
• Develop practical prompting fluency and maintain awareness of emerging creative technologies and content platforms.
• Partner with Strategy, Data and Technology to explore dynamic content, personalisation and new customer experiences.
• Maintain appropriate standards around brand safety, intellectual property, governance and human oversight.

CULTURE, INNOVATION & CREATIVE TRANSFORMATION

• Be a champion for innovation on every project.
• Challenge legacy creative processes and encourage faster, more iterative and connected ways of developing ideas.
• Explore new formats, partnerships and production approaches that improve customer and client value.
• Demonstrate thought leadership by keeping current on culture, language, platforms and industry trends.

STRATEGY & EFFECTIVENESS PARTNERSHIP

• Partner closely with Strategy to interrogate briefs, sharpen propositions and ensure ideas are grounded in meaningful human insight.
• Participate actively in campaign planning and key workshops.
• Work with Strategy and Media to define channel roles and optimise work in market where appropriate.
• Ensure creative and strategic teams operate as one problem-solving unit.

TALENT & TEAM LEADERSHIP

• Manage, mentor and develop copywriters and broader creative teams.
• Help creatives become stronger conceptual thinkers, writers, presenters and problem-solvers.
• Delegate effectively while remaining close enough to the work to protect quality and consistency.
• Support a collaborative, inclusive and ambitious creative culture.

PRODUCTION, CRAFT & EXECUTIONAL EXCELLENCE

• Partner closely with Production and Operations to ensure creative ambition is translated into excellent execution.
• Provide senior copy oversight through production, recordings, shoots, post-production, adaptation and rollout.
• Protect tone, messaging and storytelling consistency across high-volume content and adaptation.
• Balance craft, timing and commercial realities without lowering the creative standard.

Qualifications

• Must have 10+ years' experience
• Highly conceptual individual Must demonstrate with at least 5 projects
• Demonstrate exceptional strategic thinking Provide 3 examples
• Must have led the conceptualisation and execution of TTL campaigns and pure digital campaigns Show minimum of 4 examples
• Must demonstrate an understanding of digital platforms
• Track record of winning international and local awards i.e. Cannes, One Show, Loeries, Clios, Bookmarks etc.
• Show at least 1 international and 1 local gold medals
• Demonstrate how you've previously dealt with conflict
• In-depth working knowledge of existing and emerging technologies & platforms advantageous
• Be comfortable with AI being a part of the everyday activities of the role.

BUSINESS KPI'S

• Must demonstrate examples of leadership skills & problem solving
• A strong understanding of best practice interaction and visual design principles
• Must be able to oversee 7-8 projects
• Have the ability to attend every review on a project with 3 new ideas
• Oversee projects and manage and grow the team through the process

THE PERSON

• Good understanding of influencer, Mobile, Podcast, digital, social, out-of-home, guerrilla, activations and direct marketing
• Great time management
• Demonstrate ability to work under immense pressure & meet tight deadlines
• Adept problem-solving skills
• Strong communication skills with ability to provide rationales for creative choices made
• Strong presentation skills
• Able to work with team members & delegate effectively
• Understand the client's business requirements, and understand how our services should be applied to solve business problems
• Sell an idea or campaign internally and externally

WORKING KNOWLEDGE OF THESE TOOLS

• Keynote / PowerPoint
• Microsoft Word
• ChatGPT, Claude AI and similar generative AI tools
• Strong understanding of AI prompting and responsible AI-assisted writing workflows