Integrated Creative & Comms Strategist

Role OVO-View

Team: Brand Strategy & Management and Comms Planning

Location: London or Bristol based

Salary banding: 54000 - 57000

Experience: Mid/Senior Level

Working pattern: Full-Time

Reporting to: Josephine Kiernan Head of Comms Planning

Sponsorship: Unfortunately we are unable to offer sponsorship for this role.

This role in 3 words: Strategic Creative Unifying

Top 3 qualities for this role: Curious Thoughtful Driven

Where youll work:

At OVO we understand that a one size fits all approach doesnt work for everyone. Thats why we created the OVO Way of Flexibility.

All our roles are hub based (Bristol Glasgow or London) providing a dedicated space for collaboration connection and teamwork. Youll also have the flexibility to work from home.

Everyone belongs at OVO

At OVO we are on a mission to solve one of humanitys biggest challenges the climate crisis. And we know it takes all of us to change the world. Thats why we need diverse people from all abilities gender identities ethnicities ages sexual orientations life experiences and backgrounds to join us.

Teamworking for the planet

Everything we do here spins around Plan Zero. So naturally the team youll be joining plays a gigantic role in making that happen. Heres how:

Our Corporate Affairs Brand & Marketing team are the face and voice of OVO. We determine how we show up in the world responsible for everything from our brand platform to social media. Our focus is to help the business deliver on its common goal - making energy work for people and planet and making sure consumers and external stakeholders understand that as well we all do.

Creative strategy and comms planning is a fundamental function within the Brand & Marketing department - upstream visibility synthesising strategic priorities and key messages from across the business into a clear actionable and ongoing plan for the OVO Brand before turning this plan into inspiring briefs for our best-in-class in-house design studio to bring to life through channels.

The goal is always to build positive associations with consumers and inspire them to join us on our mission. To do that they need to easily understand what we offer how it benefits them and their home and how they can decarbonise and save energy.

What we do can split into three key areas:

1. What we can say: Keeping a macro one-view of all the messages we can claim. Taking an immediate and more long-term view on how these may evolve.
2. What we should say (and when): Aligning commercial goals product pipelines customers needs competitor movements and external factors across each quarter to build an impactful comms strategy.
3. How and where should we say it: Collaborating with channel-leads to define a holistic plan before partnering with stakeholders to translate that into insight-laden creative briefs

This role in a nutshell:

You will report into the Head of Comms Planning (based in London) but work closely with the entire brand team as well as be seen as an extension of the creative and design studio. Youll work closely with all of them to help broaden visibility of the ever-changing landscape of the business adhering to efficient processes and initiatives and acting as the creative oracle for effectiveness and the power of creativity.

This is an exciting and broad-reaching role which requires someone organised strategic and creative. This role would suit someone naturally curious who considers themselves a bit of a swiss army knife in terms of their skill-set but looking to sharpen their strategic thinking and planning skills.

Your key outcomes will be:

• Be an enthusiast for our mission and all the products and propositions that the business offers. Have the ability to form great relationships with these teams galvanising them in order to understand whats in their pipelines and how that may impact our comms plan and creative pipeline.
• Support the Head of Comms Planning on the yearly planning cycle. This involves co-conducting stakeholder engagement sessions with key business areas helping create slide presentations that make the complex simple and forming the yearly Comms Planning Motherboard.
• Translate all information gathered from business lines; Identify who within your department may need to know about these in order to have coordination of key messages across our marketing channels and keep the Comms Planning Motherboard up to date.
• Use the information gathered from business lines to provide upstream visibility to Creative studio leadership and project management to obtain an up-front pipeline/schedule of creative briefs.
• Organisation and coordination of the centralised channel briefing process. Acting as first point of contact for product marketing leads and business lines to brief in the communication requirements from channel leads coordinating the response and providing an overview of the recommended comms strategy.
• Using the comms strategy as an up-front opportunity to consider how the comms strategy may translate to creative execution in advance of briefs being submitted. Use customer and industry research to reveal unseen insights to interrogate as potential ways in for creative briefs.
• Organisation and coordination of a monthly creative incubator providing stakeholders across the business opportunity to set a lofty creative challenge for the creative studio to solve with fame-building creative solutions. Plus participation in and support for other proactive initiatives within the wider brand and marketing team where capacity allows.
• Support on the regular evolution of the Comms Plan and cascades of any changes. This includes ad-hoc refinements driven by changes internally and externally as well as using quarterly tracking of OKRs.
• Regularly partnering with stakeholders who submit creative briefs to support their creative and requirements. Youll interrogate the core creative ask in the brief supplementing it with further insights (backed by research) to help direct creative focus towards attention grabbing distinctive ideas that reflect our brand strategy.
• Be a champion for comms planning creative effectiveness and reporting. Partner closely with stakeholders and channel leads to obtain data for creative output/campaigns which help show how the creative work works. Use performance data to apply learnings for ongoing briefs and to refine creative approaches.
• Work closely with the brand team to internally showcase ongoing examples of comms planning work and creative strategy output and the impact it has in monthly reports

Youll be a successful Integrated Creative & Comms Strategisthere at OVO if you

• A solid background in the fields of either Research Marketing Advertising Communications or the Commercial function of an organisation.
• Can be an ambitious strategy chameleon with the ability to flip between organised planner and inspiring strategist seamlessly.
• Are passionately organised with a curious eye for detail. There are a lot of documents to keep up to date with lots of changes happening across plans.
• Have an insatiable curiosity to learn more about a business and the industry in which it operates along with what drives commercial results and how they can make the difference in creating competitive advantage through marketing and comms.
• Are motivated by connecting the dots and making an impact through the strength of your this role youre the web not the spider - you wont own the final product but youll create the connective tissue that makes everything else work.
• Be passionate about what good creative looks like and what it can deliver for the business. Be equally thrilled by getting lost in rabbit holes of consumer research as by analysing performance data to uncover what worked what didnt and how it can make our creative product work even better.
• Have a proven understanding of the importance of brand and ideally a foundational knowledge of different channels through the funnel.
• Enjoy working both collaboratively and independently.
• Are a confident communicator whos not afraid of finding the right people to get the right information. With an ability to listen and build positive relationships.
• Have confidence working in an emerging area with the energy and ambition to help embed the vision thats been set.
• Are a proactive thinker who wants to learn and be given responsibility.
• Someone whos not afraid of but can embrace change and find the opportunities within it.
  

Lets talk about whats in it for you

Well pay you between 54000 and 57000 depending on your specific skills and experience. If your expectations are a little different have a chat with us!

We keep our pay ranges broad on purpose to give us and you flexibility to match your experience to our zero carbon mission.

Youll be eligible for an on-target bonus of 15%. We have one OVO bonus plan that focuses on the collective performance of our people to deliver our Plan Zero goal.

We also offer plenty of green benefits and progressive policies to help you feel like you belong at OVOand theres flex pay. Well give you 9% Flex Pay on top of your salary 4% of this is auto enrolled into your pension and the remaining 5% is yours to do what you like with. You can use this to buy from our extensive range of flexible benefits including our green benefits which weve put at the heart of our offering add to your pension or even take it as cash.

Heres a taster of whats on offer:

For starters youll get 34 days of holiday (including bank holidays).

For your health
With benefits like a healthcare cash plan or private medical insurance depending on your career level critical illness cover life assurance health assessments and more

For your wellbeing
With gym membership travel insurance workplace ISA will writing services dental insurance and more

For your lifestyle
With extra holiday buying discount dining home & tech loans and supporting your favourite charities with give-as-you-earn donations

For your home
Get up to 400 towards any OVO Energy plan plus great discounts on solar smart thermostats and EV chargers

For your commute
Nab a great deal on ultra-low emission car leasing plus our cycle to work scheme and public transport season ticket loans

Want to hear about our full range of flexible benefits and progressive people policies Our People Team can tell you everything you need to know.

For your Belonging

To find better ways to support our people we need to listen to each others experiences and find ways to build a truly inclusive and diverse workplace. As part of this we have 8 Belonging Networks at OVO. Led by our people for our people - so when you join OVO you can play a part - big or small - with any of the Networks. Its up to you.

Oh and one last thing...

Wed be thrilled if you tick off all our boxes yet we also believe its just as important we tick off all of yours. And if you think you have most of what were looking for but not every single thing go ahead and hit apply. Wed still love to hear from you!

If you have any additional requirements theres a space to let us know on the application form; we want to make the process as easy and comfortable for you as possible..