Creative Lead (Motion Design Required)
Job Description
BARK.LONDON CREATIVE LEAD (MOTION DESIGNER) JOB SPEC
Thank you for taking the time to read this and for considering us to help progress your career.
WHO ARE BARK.LONDON? (We’re not bark.com!)
We’re a specialist remote-hybrid performance marketing agency, with one aim: help businesses grow.
Practically, we do this with best-in-class Facebook and Google ads; data & analytics; and performance creative.
We’re also Premium Facebook and Google Partners.
Over the past three years, we’ve grown in size and reputation extremely quickly by hiring talented people who truly care about getting results for the businesses we partner with, then providing them with the tools, support and training they need to excel.
We’re a small team (7 at the start of 2021 - 19 at the time of writing & on pace to double again next year) that packs a punch and currently manages over 2x the annual spend of the “big 6” agencies on social alone.
Because of our significant growth without traditional PR or marketing, allowing our work to do the talking for us and growing purely on strong word of mouth, we’ve been referred to internally at Facebook as “the Tesla of agencies”. A little cringey but we'll take the comparison.
Our vision is for Bark.London to be a vehicle for our team to achieve what they want to achieve: personal & professional. We’ll support them (you!) in whatever that might be and recognise that it’s our job as an employer to give our team every opportunity to make their goals a reality.
THE ROLE
We’re looking for a Creative Lead to join us who is excited about taking on a new challenge, owning the creative function and growing with us as a business. This is a rare opportunity to join a department at ground level and personally control the direction of our rapidly evolving creative offering.
If you have a passion for thumb-stopping motion, discovering social trends and capturing an audience - this is the role for you.
Day to day you will lead and work closely with our Creative team making content for the paid advertising channels for our portfolio of clients. Driven by the data that our wider team specialises in, this content will be optimised for peak ad-performance.
Motion-design is a requirement, but you should also be extremely comfortable with still imagery. You will be expected to lead creatively across the accounts and create industry-leading performance content, as well as being the go-to for any team member looking for creative input.
We’re looking for someone:
- Minimum 4-5+ years of industry experience
You will be given full autonomy over your clients, it’s important to us that this is something you are confident with.
- Management experience, or at the very least the aptitude to lead.
- Deeply interested in social-media and how it can be harnessed to help businesses grow.
- Understands ecommerce & performance marketing from a creative perspective.
You must understand what goes into a good direct response ad, and what that looks like.
- Skilled in Adobe Creative Cloud
- After Effects & Photoshop are a must-have.
- Illustrator & Premiere are a bonus.
- Organised
You will be in charge of managing your own deadlines and workload. We will never ask you to do more than you are capable of, but you must be able to take charge of communicating this with the team.
You will also be in charge of allocating deadlines and workload to the members of the creative team, this requires strong time management awareness.
- Highly detail orientated
You’ll have final say over the creative team’s output and quality, and be responsible for compounding our reputation for creative excellence.
- Switched-on, ambitious, and full of spark.
- A hunger for growth - personal and professional!
In a rapidly evolving landscape nothing stays the same for too long. An eagerness to learn, develop, and adapt your skills is vital, as is an ability to look at the bigger picture and strategically plan the growth of the department.
- Commercial awareness
You must be comfortable confidently pitching our creative offering to prospective clients, and upselling creative to existing clients, discussing both the end to end process and associated fees.
- Process & workflow management
We’re big on reducing repetitive manual tasks and streamlining the day-to-day operations of the entire company. We have an efficient and well-dialled creative process (from briefing through to delivery) but nothing’s perfect and you should be constantly looking for ways to further improve this process for the benefit of the team and wider company.
We do a fair amount of company socials, hangouts, breaks, events and meetups (Covid permitting) and you’ll be expected to have fun and create some of the best work of your career. But it’s important to recognise things won’t always be a walk in the park. We expect a lot from each other, particularly given we’re a remote-first business where results do the talking.
Here are some things you should know about how we work and what we expect as a team:
- Work smart and do work you’re proud of.
- Your time is your own. Manage it well.
- Our clients are our partners, always do the right thing for them.
- Embrace failure, we learn the most when we make mistakes.
- Get involved and enjoy yourself, life’s too short to take things too seriously.
OUR CLIENTS
99% of our clients are direct to consumer eCommerce brands and typically fall somewhere into the below categories:
- Fashion, apparel, jewellery
- FMCG
- Plants, greetings & misc. gifts
- Sports & fitness
- Subscriptions
Many are venture capital backed. Many are bootstrapped, founder-owned & run. They all trust us to lead their growth.
Importantly, we have no dedicated sales team whose incentives are misaligned to the business - wanting to get anyone and everyone through the door. We ensure every client we sign is thoroughly vetted before we even offer to take them on.
Here’s our criteria:
They’ve got to pass the “drinks test”. Would we want to hang out with them and have a drink or are they going to be awkward, difficult, demanding and no fun to work with?
They’ve got to have a product(s) and brand we can get excited about as a team.
They’ve got to be a proven concept and making sales already. Too many businesses think advertising will solve their issues, when in actual fact they need to work on their model, positioning, brand and offering before introducing a load of people.
They’ve got to want to grow and be in a position to support that growth. We partner with businesses to scale their customer acquisition, not just to push buttons in ad accounts.
If they pass all these criteria then we’ll offer to help, but only if we’re not already at capacity.
Just some of our clients (Paid Social & Google PPC):
...amongst others
OUR TEAM
We’ve gone against the typical agency model and hired an extremely senior to mid-level team first. Logic being, it’s important to build a firm foundation: be in a position to actually provide a great service to clients, and provide upskilling opportunities to the wider team as we grow.
Creative: Currently led by Alfie Millar, an exceptional Creative Lead who’s designed and delivered across both brand and performance assets for the likes of TikTok, Detox Kitchen, Lancome, Oddbox, Pepsi, eBay, and many more. Alfie joined us on a full time but temporary basis to establish the creative function and now that he’s achieved that, we’re looking for a Creative Lead to take over the reins and continue to build on the incredible job he’s done to-date.
Simon, Head of Performance: Led multiple global paid acquisition teams for the likes of Made.com, Simba Sleep, Just Eat, Uswitch. Incredibly practical & hands-on. Ensures results for each client we partner with.
Rachel, Head of Strategy & Client Services: Multiple in-house roles for small & large DTC eCommerce businesses focussing on the full performance suite: PPC, Social, CRM, CRO, Affiliates; Prog. A genuine "unicorn" working with the growth team to ensure each client's strategic aim is realised.
Alex, Data & Analytics Lead: PHD; Background in epidemiology research; has managed Facebook ads for Facebook tech partners, agencies and in-house; led Paid Media & Data at Mahabis. At Bark.London, he manages reporting and supports on Facebook strategy across all clients, and provides business science/analytics consultancy.
Our senior team are always available for direct 1-1’s if you want to discuss anything or upskill.
THE PACKAGE
- Hybrid working - remote/ in-office as much as you’d like
- London office
- Old Street Roundabout
- 14th floor roof terrace with cafe, bar and panoramic views of London
- Bike storage, 150m outdoor running track, showers, meditation room
- Performance based bonus scheme
- New business bonus scheme
- 25 days’ holiday
- Learning and development budget (books, courses, events etc.)
- Pension scheme (3% employer, up to 5% employee)
- As a Premium Facebook and Google Partners, you’ll get direct access to Facebook & Google for confidential first-dibs insights on new tools and media buying approaches, certifications, sponsored events and a whole host of exclusive networking, learning and development benefits for you and your clients
- A load of perks. Exclusive discounts and rewards at over 30,000 brands, cinemas & retailers for you + up to 10 family or friends
- Work Macbook
- Home office set-up
- Adobe suite
Thanks for taking the time to read this and learning about Bark.London. We’d love to meet you.
Daniel & Tom
Founders
Bark.London