WHAT DOES A CREATIVE MANAGER DO?
Published: August 30, 2024 - The Creative Manager oversees project management, ensuring effective planning and interdepartmental communication between creative, sales, estimating, and production teams. By supervising team members and maintaining software proficiency, they drive productivity and budget oversight while fostering positive client relations and adherence to SLAs. Responsibilities also include managing milestones, appraising performance, improving processes, and addressing employee needs and performance issues.
A Review of Professional Skills and Functions for Creative Manager
1. Creative Manager Duties
- Cloud Asset Management: Manage assets in a cloud-based system ensuring the appropriateness of file sizes, file names, and directories.
- Brand Compliance: Ensure all assets in the system are aligned to brand guidelines and directions.
- Support and Coordination: Assist all countries with uploading and downloading, supporting both local marketing teams and agency partners.
- Cross-Regional Collaboration: Collaborate with the creative team cross-regionally to ensure consistency across regions.
- Project and Quality Management: Support the Global Brand team by creating project management best practices and ensuring timely delivery of design and artwork with strict adherence to work schedules.
- Supplier Liaison: Liaise with printers and suppliers to ensure production requirements are correct.
- Best Practice Development: Actively seek input on best practices and create a standard template and systems to share on an ongoing basis.
- Forum Participation: Actively support best practice sharing forums including meetings and conferences (virtual and face-to-face) in a coordination and facilitation role, including on occasion presenting best practices.
- Training and Onboarding: Train new team members on the available assets and sharing platforms including agency partners.
- Presentation Preparation: Assist with the visual preparation of key presentations, including creating new PowerPoint templates and presentation materials.
2. Creative Manager Details
- Workflow Management: Resource planning and workflow management across multiple clients.
- Project Planning Leadership: Lead project planning in partnership with the Account team to operationalize project workstreams.
- Vendor and Resource Identification: Identify new vendors and creative resources to help fulfill deliverables in seamless and efficient ways.
- Budget and Vendor Management: Manage project budgets and vendor relationships.
- Talent Sourcing: Source creative talent, both freelance and permanent, as needs arise (social media creators across all channels, designers, art directors, photographers, videographers, etc.).
- Creative Resource Development: Develop a library of creative resources through innovative talent acquisition strategies to build a best-in-class resource database.
- Creative Workflow Management: Manage creative workflow in the project management platform (ClickUp), while working with the project leadership team to facilitate creative resources across client work, flagging needs when necessary.
- Process Improvement: Provide suggestions and initiate process improvements to optimize creative team allocations and resourcing.
- Client Project Management: Manage client projects/programs/campaigns through the entire lifecycle, including planning, resourcing, creative, production, and delivery.
- Production and Post-Production Management: Bid, hire, and manage production and post-production partners for assigned projects, working within client budgetary, timeline, and compliance requirements.
- Project Scope Definition: Define project scopes, timelines, resource allocations, and outsourced costs for assigned projects, working within client budgetary, timeline, and compliance requirements.
3. Creative Manager Responsibilities
- Project Management: Manage projects, planning, and strategic conversations for creative projects while fostering interdepartmental communication between creative, sales, estimating, and production.
- Customer Service: Ensure the team provides a positive customer service experience, with outputs produced on time and in full.
- Software Proficiency: Understand how to use and maintain the software and tools needed for team members to be successful (Adobe Creative Suite).
- Team Milestone Management: Establish team milestones, anticipate issues, requirements, design documents, and schedules.
- Client Relations: Ensure client requirements are met and the team performs per agreed-upon SLAs.
- Productivity and Budget Oversight: Monitor and maintain department productivity and budgets.
- Work Management: Manage the work efforts of individual contributors.
- Team Supervision: Supervise team members, provide constructive feedback/coaching where needed, be alert for training opportunities, talk to and listen to employees' needs, concerns, and suggestions.
- Performance Appraisal: Define the responsibilities of subordinates, communicate established standards of performance and procedures, and appraise performance against assigned responsibilities.
- Employee Management: Responsibilities include training employees, planning, assigning, and directing work, appraising performance, addressing complaints, and resolving problems.
- Process Improvement: Drive continuous process improvements in a complex, detailed environment.
4. Creative Manager Job Summary
- Brand Development: Develop and maintain dynamic brand and creative guidelines that drive the continual growth and promotion of the ThinkMarkets name
- Strategic Branding: Establish the strategic brand and creative approach across a variety of marketing and sales mediums
- Visual Identity Management: Drive evolution in the brand’s visual identity, culminating in an elevated, forward-thinking expression of the brand
- Creative Campaigns: Develop creative and innovative campaign concepts that connect with audience and brand
- Team Management: Manage in-house creative team (including visual and web design, creative writing, and videography)
- Agency Coordination: Manage external creative agencies and designers, where needed
- Cross-Functional Collaboration: Seamlessly represent brand essence by working cross-functionally with internal Product, Marketing, Sales, and Operational teams to ensure consistency and quality of brand experience at every touch point
- Project Oversight: Oversee all stages of project planning, production, and deployment to ensure the highest level of quality
- Creative Leadership: Provide leadership within the creative team by reviewing creative work and giving strategic feedback
- Trend Analysis: Evaluate trends, assess new data, and keep up to date with the latest marketing techniques
5. Creative Manager Accountabilities
- Communication Strategy Development: Develop a communication strategy for the brand’s upcoming and ongoing campaigns.
- Content Creation: Research, conceptualize, and then develop content for assigned brands in accordance with the briefs provided.
- Collaboration with Creative Team: Work closely with the Account Manager and Art Director to ensure that all the ideas are properly executed.
- Campaign Planning: Plan the rollout of the campaign on social media, and other offline/on-ground activities related to the campaign.
- Idea Generation: Work to prepare high-impact ideas for pitching and proposals for potential clients.
- Quality Control: Provide quality control over concepts and projects.
- Internal Collaboration: Collaborate with any or all internal departments including sales, marketing, production, and management.
- Contractor Management: Manage the work from outside contractors and freelance, assuring the accuracy of its content and its adherence to brand standards.
- Product Design Leadership: Lead all aspects of development and consistent execution of product design that is unique and recognizable for the brand.
- Agency Management: Manage day-to-day activities of agencies and related vendor relationships, holding agency partners accountable to program goals.