Head Of Creative Strategy Japan

Sell what you love. For us and millions of users across the globe, that’s Spotify. Join the Sales team and you’ll build the relationships that help grow our business in existing markets and beyond. We don’t just sell creative solutions to our clients and partners, we help to shape them; using our expert knowledge of ad products, sales channels and the industry to impact the way the world experiences music and podcasts.

The Creative Lab sits within Spotify Advertising, the business unit within Spotify that focuses on connecting brands to billions of fans around the world. Our team is Spotify Advertising’s in-house creative agency, responsible for building branded experiences. We collaborate with brands and agencies to inspire, create, and scale creativity with Spotify-first thinking.

We are seeking a seasoned leader to join our talented creative strategy team in Tokyo, Japan, dedicated to inspiring the best ideas centered around Spotify through proactive and reactive responses to creative briefs, co-creating and building with our biggest brands, creators, and advertisers today. We are storytellers who are obsessed with how ideas can be brought to life through the superpowers of our platform, and we are looking for someone to lead the team through our next evolution, champion the potential of our products and offerings and elevate our work.

What You’ll Do

• Building and leading our small and mighty creative strategy practice in the mission to build the world’s most inspiring platform for creatives and advertisers
• Inspire people to the mission and work through complex creative and operational problems, to think broadly about the advertising industry dynamics and impact on business and apply them to our positioning, products, programs and offering
• Own and lead the Japan and strategic approach, in deep partnership with the heads of sales in Japan, with goal to build a world class advertising platform
• Lead the strategy for Japan and create compelling integrated creative narratives & initiatives that drive awareness and demand, from a core target audience of creative and media agencies as well as brand marketers
• Lead all aspects of operations including account and resource management, goal tracking, team process management, and interdepartmental collaboration for efficiency
• Identify, develop and maintain a unique position for Spotify’s creative offerings and deliver them in a compelling way to convince partners to explore solutions with us
• Facilitate inspirational workshops with senior level partners to find the right balance of boundary pushing creative expression and brand realities
• Collaborate with ops, production, creative intelligence, data science, and global creative leads for high-quality campaigns, as well as to support top clients; driving approach to JBP support and coordination
• Develop and demonstrate creative thought leadership on industry, advertising, visual and digital culture and trends as input and fodder to inspire internal and external partners
• Build a portfolio of work that wins awards and recognition throughout the tech and creative industries to prove that creativity on Spotify is the key to amplifying communications in a complex and crowded IRL and digital landscape

Who You Are

• You have a minimum of 10 years of experience in creative direction, creative strategy at a platform, media brand or agency in the Japan market
• World class presenter with an ability to tell stories about creative work through the lens of culture for Spotify and develop compelling, thought provoking creative and strategic narratives that best demonstrate the creative potential of Spotify
• Experience working with teams across multiple markets or global teams is a huge advantage given the cross regional responsibilities. They will report directly into the regional lead for Creative Lab, APAC
• Deliver a narrative persuasively to audiences of all sizes from a small room with CMOs of a large brand, to large formats like conferences and on stages
• A fast problem solver capable of collaborating seamlessly with internal and external associates like contractors and vendors to materialize ideas
• Experience collaborating executive level collaborators and clients at agencies and brands
• Observes and documents culture trends effectively, with a strong grasp of relevancy and a curiosity about identifying emerging visual, digital, and tech trends
• Expert written and verbal communicator, with the ability to articulate abstract creative concepts and persuade audiences when required
• Deep understanding of integrated marketing development, tech platforms and social media landscape, with experience in digital first production
• Capable of thriving in a dynamic environment and collaborate with colleagues from business marketing, brand, and product teams to reach agreements on common projects
• Business level fluency in Japanese and English

Where You’ll Be

• This position will be based in Tokyo
• We offer you the flexibility to work where you work best! There will be some in person meetings, but still allows for flexibility to work from home

Spotify is an equal opportunity employer. You are welcome at Spotify for who you are, no matter where you come from, what you look like, or what’s playing in your headphones. Our platform is for everyone, and so is our workplace. The more voices we have represented and amplified in our business, the more we will all thrive, contribute, and be forward-thinking! So bring us your personal experience, your perspectives, and your background. It’s in our differences that we will find the power to keep revolutionizing the way the world listens.

Spotify transformed music listening forever when we launched in 2008. Our mission is to unlock the potential of human creativity by giving a million creative artists the opportunity to live off their art and billions of fans the chance to enjoy and be passionate about these creators. Everything we do is driven by our love for music and podcasting. Today, we are the world’s most popular audio streaming subscription service.