Associate Creative Director at EXL in New Jersey

Associate Creative Director

Location: New Jersey, United States

Associate Creative Director

$95k-130k plus bonus

For more information on benefits and what we offer please visit us at https://www.exlservice.com/us-careers-and-benefits

The posted range is the hiring range for this role — a subset of the broader range available to employees over time — and reflects base salary across our national hiring scale. Final offers are based on several factors, including the candidate's skills and experience, internal pay equity, work location, market conditions for the role, and the specific scope and responsibilities of the position. The top of the range is reserved for candidates who notably exceed the requirements; the lower end applies to those with less experience or fewer preferred qualifications. For positions based in higher-cost zones (e.g., California, New York, New Jersey), actual compensation may exceed the posted range; your recruiter will share specifics during the process.

Position Overview

The Associate Creative Director partners with the Clients, Account Manager and Creative Director to develop and execute compelling, performance-driven creative solutions across direct mail, digital, and integrated marketing campaigns. This role is responsible for leading concept development from insight through execution, translating marketing objectives into breakthrough creative ideas that drive engagement and results.

The ideal candidate is a strong conceptual thinker with both copywriting and design experience, a deep understanding of direct response marketing, and demonstrated experience using AI tools throughout creative concepting and development. This individual will use AI to accelerate ideation, explore and refine concepts, develop messaging and visual directions, and improve creative outcomes while applying strong human judgment, brand stewardship, and quality control. They will work closely with strategists, account teams, project managers, analytics teams, and production partners to ensure creative excellence across all deliverables.

Concept Development & Creative Strategy

• Lead the development of innovative campaign concepts for direct mail, digital, email, and multi-channel marketing programs.
• Translate client objectives, audience insights, and performance goals into compelling creative executions.
• Participate in creative brief development and brainstorming sessions.
• Create campaign themes, messaging frameworks, and creative approaches that align with brand and business objectives.
• Use AI-enabled creative tools as an integral part of concepting and development to generate, evaluate, iterate, and refine campaign ideas, messaging, visual directions, and content variations—while ensuring originality, brand alignment, accuracy, compliance, and production feasibility.

Copywriting & Messaging

• Develop headlines, value propositions, offer positioning, direct response copy, and campaign messaging.
• Ensure messaging is clear, persuasive, audience-focused, and aligned with brand standards.
• Collaborate with copywriters and subject matter experts to refine content and improve performance.
• Review and edit creative assets to maintain voice, tone, and consistency across channels.

Creative Execution & Design Collaboration

• Partner with designers and production teams to bring concepts to life.
• Contribute to visual ideation, layout direction, and creative development.
• Provide guidance on design execution, user experience, and customer engagement.
• Review creative materials throughout development to ensure quality and strategic alignment.
• Design experience is highly desirable and will be considered a significant advantage.

Direct Mail Leadership

• Serve as a subject matter expert in direct mail creative strategy and best practices.
• Develop acquisition, cross-sell, retention, and customer engagement direct mail concepts.
• Understand direct mail production processes, formats, postal requirements, personalization techniques, and testing methodologies.
• Create solutions that balance creative innovation with operational feasibility and production requirements.

Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Work closely with account, strategy, analytics, production, and project management teams.
• Present concepts and creative recommendations to internal stakeholders and clients.
• Incorporate feedback while maintaining creative integrity and campaign objectives.
• Support the Creative Director in managing priorities across multiple projects and clients.

Quality Assurance

• Ensure creative work is strategically sound, error-free, and aligned with client expectations.
• Maintain consistency across campaigns, channels, and touchpoints.
• Participate in creative reviews and provide constructive feedback to team members.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Marketing, Communications, Advertising, Graphic Design, Journalism, or related field.
• 5+ years of creative experience in an agency, direct marketing, financial services, fintech, banking, insurance, or related environment.
• Demonstrated experience developing integrated marketing campaigns with a strong emphasis on direct mail.
• Strong portfolio showcasing concept development, campaign thinking, copywriting, and creative execution.
• Demonstrated hands-on experience using generative AI and other AI-enabled creative tools across the creative lifecycle, including ideation, copy and visual exploration, rapid prototyping, iteration, and development of execution-ready concepts.
• Proven ability to create compelling direct response messaging.
• Experience collaborating with designers, writers, strategists, and production teams.
• Strong presentation and communication skills.
• Ability to manage multiple projects in a fast-paced environment.

Preferred Qualifications

• Direct mail expertise including acquisition, retention, loyalty, and cross-sell campaigns.
• Experience in financial services, banking, fintech, insurance, or regulated industries.
• Design experience using Adobe Creative Suite (InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator).
• Understanding of testing methodologies, audience segmentation, personalization, and performance marketing.
• Experience presenting creative concepts to executive-level stakeholders and clients.

Success Measures

• Development of breakthrough creative concepts that drive measurable campaign performance.
• Strong partnership with the Creative Director and cross-functional teams.
• Consistent delivery of high-quality, on-strategy creative work.
• Effective integration of copy, design, and direct response principles.
• Effective and responsible use of AI to increase the speed, range, and quality of creative exploration while maintaining human oversight, brand standards, compliance, and production readiness.
• Ability to translate complex business objectives into customer-centric marketing campaigns.
• Success in supporting client growth, campaign innovation, and creative excellence.

This version positions the role clearly beneath the Creative Director while emphasizing concept development, direct mail expertise, copy leadership, and enough design capability to effectively direct creative execution without necessarily being a senior designer.