Job title: Head of Content and Social

Location: London (Shoreditch)

Reports to: Director of Marketing

Salary: £50 - £64 k (depending on experience) plus benefits

Hours: 9:30 am - 5:30 pm Monday to Friday, with hybrid working to be discussed and agreed, Tuesday and Thursday are compulsory office days

About the role

D&AD sits on top of one of the best content assets in the creative industry. Sixty years of Pencil-winning work. The juries who judged it. The Festival stage. The students coming through New Blood who will be running the industry in a decade. Masterclasses and Learn, where the people who actually make the work teach how they do it. Shift, where careers start without a degree.

Almost all of that walks in and out of the building underutilised.

We are looking for a Head of Content and Social to fix that. The successful candidate will set the content and social strategy, but also be close enough to the work to make it themself when it counts. This is not a role where you write the deck and hand it over.

You'll lead a team of three plus freelancers and agencies when required to build a year-round content engine that turns access to the creative community, creative and brand leaders and ambassadors into compelling interviews, reports, video, webinars, sales enablement tools and brand content. The team is made up of a Senior Editor who owns the written and editorial output; a Content Editor & Producer you will hire, covering video, audio and photography capture and turnaround, and a Social Media Manager who is responsible for ensuring our brand and messages reach the right people in the right way.

This job is part hands-on and part strategic, and the split moves week to week. Festival week and other event periods you’ll be on the floor with a camera or mic. Other weeks you are setting direction, briefing, editing other people's work and making sure the plan holds.

What you’ll be responsible for

The strategy

Content and social strategies across the full portfolio: D&AD Awards, Festival, New Blood, D&AD Learn/Masterclasses and Shift. You decide what we make, for whom, on what channel, and why it will land. You are measured on what the channels do for entries, ticket sales, brand love and revenue.

Cultural relevance and storytelling

Define the cultural moments we play in and which conversations, debates and industry flashpoints are ours to enter, which we ignore, and what we say when we do. You also keep enough room in the calendar to react inside a day when something breaks. Ensure the social and content calendars balance the awards cycle, campaign priorities and whatever the industry is actually talking about that week.

Content

• The channels. LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, D&AD website, email newsletter and other new social platforms relevant to the strategy. Your team runs them, you read them and grow them. You know the difference between what performs for a creative director on LinkedIn and what performs for a 19-year-old on TikTok, and you get both made.

• Social first by default. Develop repeatable social-first formats across TikTok, Reels, Shorts and YouTube, and set the standard for pacing, hooks, storytelling and retention in everything we cut. Everything is shot with the edit in mind and cut for the platform it lives on. You understand how short-form actually performs, at the level of the first two seconds, the pacing, the hook and where people drop off, and you can give a specific, useful note on a cut rather than a general one. You know the difference between a film with clips pulled from it and content built to be social from the moment the camera goes up. You are also the quality gate on the edit: you review the output, feed back properly, and help the team balance quality against pace and volume.

• Discoverability. Make sure content is structured to be found, in search and in LLM citation, briefing the technical work or doing it yourself if able. You understand how content gets found in the age of AI and by the models people increasingly ask instead of searching. You structure what we publish so D&AD gets cited and ensure content is always optimised to drive views and traffic back to D&AD.

• Production. D&AD paves the way for the highest of creative standards.

  • Ensure every piece of work has human touch and creativity and craft. AI is fine to use to enable creativity and help us be efficient but embed AI properly into how the team drafts, edits, repurposes and researches, with a clear view of where it helps and where it flattens the work.

  • Bring new creative approaches, references and platform behaviours into the building, so D&AD is early to formats rather than late.

  • Direct the video, audio and photography output, briefing the team, and shooting or cutting yourself when the moment calls for it.

  • Build the repurposing engine so one shoot becomes a full set of assets rather than a single film and a couple of stills.

  • Quality Control. Act as the final gate on quality. Nothing goes out under the D&AD name that you would not defend in a room full of people who judge work for a living.

• The camera and the edit. Festival talks, jury rooms, Pencil winners, studio visits, students at New Blood, tutors, course-leaders mid-Masterclass. Shooting, stills and turnaround sit with the Content Editor & Producer, but you set the vision and you are hands-on when the moment matters or the team is stretched. You know your way round editing tools and timelines and you can take a raw clip to a published reel the same day.

• Audio and long-form. We have access to the most interesting people in the industry and need a consistent way of capturing them effectively and efficiently. You build the format and you and your team are the ones in the room with the guest. The team turns each conversation into an episode, a run of clips, a newsletter or a talking point.

• Editorial. Interviews, case studies, jury insight, trend pieces off the back of the Awards data. The Senior Editor runs the day-to-day of this and works with you to set the territory, decide what is worth making and hold the standard the D&AD name deserves.

• Brand and thought leadership. You work closely with the Marketing and PR leads so content pulls its weight against campaign and brand objectives. That means feeding campaign moments with the right assets, and building the flagship pieces that earn coverage and conversation: thought leadership, industry reports, insight drawn from the Awards data, other relevant sources and from our audiences. You work closely with the Head of PR and Head of Marketing to shape those pieces and make sure each one is launched properly rather than published and forgotten.

• Sales enablement. Our commercial teams sell entries, partnerships, sponsorship and training. They need proof, case studies, sizzles and decks that make the argument for them. You treat that work as creative work rather than an afterthought because it pays for our education programmes which drive our mission forward.

Social

Social is where most people meet D&AD, and for a lot of the industry it is the only version of us they see.

The platforms and channels. LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Reddit, Pinterest, whatever earns its place next. With the help of the Social Media Manager, you define what the role of each one is, how we behave on them to engage audiences, what we post there, how often, and what we stop doing. You know why a cut that works on TikTok needs reworking for LinkedIn, and you ensure the rework is done rather than cross-posting.

Voice in the feed. You can write copy if needed and approve the copy that goes out, and set how D&AD sounds in a caption, a comment and a reply. Confident, specific and worth the industry's attention.

Community. Working closely with the Head of PR and wider team to spot who is worth talking to, and building relationships with the creators, students, studios and members who already talk about us to ensure the community is alive and thriving.

Listening. You watch what the industry is posting and arguing about, you track how we and comparable organisations show up, and you turn that into content territory rather than a monthly report.

Growth. You are measured on what the channels do: audience growth, engagement quality, and traffic and conversion into entries, tickets, and course sign-ups.

The team

You nurture and get the best out of our Senior Editor & Ambassadors Program Manager, Social Media Manager and a Content Editor & Producer (to be hired). Hire the latter well, and use the freelance bench for bigger shoots/projects properly. Set clear standards and direction, inspire them and make sure they are pointed at the right things and constantly looking for ways to drive impact.

Analytics - the feedback loop

Own the numbers. Define what we measure, read it honestly, and close the loop so performance data changes how the next round of content is shot and cut, not just how it is reported. You can tell the difference between a good month and a lucky post.

You'll fit if you

• Have a body of work rather than a tidy CV. Channels you grew, films you cut, a show you built, a publication you shaped.

• Run at a high level of agency. You spot what should be filmed, you go and film it, and you do not wait for a brief.

• Are equal parts maker and operator. You can frame the shot and then read whether it worked.

• Care about the creative industry properly. You have opinions about the work and you can hold them in a room full of people who judge it for a living.

• Use AI natively in how you produce, edit, repurpose and research. You have views on where it helps and where it flattens the work.

• Sweat an asset. One shoot should become a film, a dozen cuts, a written piece, a newsletter and something the sales team can use.

• Work well across a marketing team. You can take a brand or campaign objective from someone else and turn it into content that actually serves it, without losing your own editorial view.

• Are comfortable in a lean not-for-profit where the budget is finite and the ambition is not.

• Have got good work out of a small team before, and enjoy developing people

• Are chronically online in a useful way, and can tell a real cultural moment from a passing format.
  

Must-haves

• Demonstrable experience in content marketing, editorial and leadership roles with a proven track record of delivering successful strategies

• Strong strategic mindset, with the ability to develop and execute content initiatives that drive measurable business impact

• Experience and confidence using the core publishing and content-production stack eg. Adobe Creative Cloud, Video editing in Premiere Pro or equivalent, Image optimisation - cropping, resizing, compression, file formats etc., basic knowledge of content tagging, metadata, alt text, accessibility and responsive layouts, copy editing tools etc.

• Exceptional editing and storytelling skills, with the ability to maintain and elevate a strong brand voice.

• Deep understanding of social platforms, audience engagement strategies and emerging trends

• Effective cross-functional skills, with the ability to align stakeholders, influence across teams and drive initiatives across the business

• Data-driven and analytical, with experience using analytics tools to measure performance and derive insights that inform decisions

• Solid understanding of SEO/AEO principles

• Familiar with Al tools and an advocate for applying them thoughtfully across content and editorial workflows

• Highly organised and proactive, with the ability to manage multiple priorities

D&AD is committed to diversity, equality, equity, inclusion and respect for all.  Providing a work environment in which all employees are treated with fairness, respect and dignity and which is free of discrimination, victimisation, bullying and harassment.   At D&AD we are interested in every individual bringing their ‘Whole Self’ to work and this includes you! Please email vanessa.knight@btinternet.com to let us know if you need any reasonable adjustments to be made for any part of the recruitment process.

In order to comply with the Prevention of Illegal Working, Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Act, you will need to provide appropriate documentation that proves that you are eligible to work in the UK.  

Due to the number of applications we receive, we regret that you will not be contacted unless you are shortlisted for an interview. If you have not heard from us within three weeks of the closing date of your application you should assume that you have not been successful on this occasion. 

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