Creative Director

Department: Creative

Location: London

Contact type: 12-Month FTC

Full Time/Part time: Full Time (Hybrid)

Reporting into: Executive Creative Director

About Ogilvy

Our vision is to inspire brands and people to impact the world. To create big ideas that make a significant contribution to the planet, society, and the bottom line. We believe in today's world this is the best way for our clients to achieve sustainable growth. We achieve this by breaking down the barriers that restrict talent and ideas.

Which is why our teams work fluidly across 5 capabilities: Advertising, Consulting, Ogilvy One, PR & Influencer, and Health. This allows us to not only operate but innovate at the intersection of capabilities and talent. We believe impact and magic lies at this intersection. Ogilvy scales this by seamlessly connecting and accessing the deep cultural expertise of 132 offices in 83 countries.

The result is multifaceted ideas for our clients that drive impact and are born from the intersection of platform x culture x technology. We call this Borderless Creativity. 

Ogilvy was ranked the number one UK agency at D&AD and was the only UK agency to win a Glass Lions at Cannes. Ogilvy was also nominated network of the year in Cannes Lions, Campaign, Effie Awards EMEA, London International Awards, The One Show and WARC Rankings. 

The Role:

We are looking for a Creative Director to lead work for one of our legacy clients, driving campaigns that combine bold ideas with meaningful impact. This is a role for someone who thrives at the intersection of strategy, creativity, and culture, someone who inspires teams, elevates work, and delivers ideas that leave a mark.

You will set the creative vision, champion exceptional work, and lead a team of talented creatives across disciplines. This role demands a balance of strategic thinking, leadership, and a fearless approach to innovation.

What Success Looks Like:

• Build trust with client and team, clarify the creative vision, audit current work and processes, and establish a clear quality bar and review cadence.
• Launch a high-impact integrated campaign that drives brand lift and engagement across priority channels; improve team workflow and creative velocity.
• Establish or evolve a brand platform that earns share of voice, delivers business results, and wins recognition (case studies, awards, earned media).

Responsibilities:

• Creative Leadership
• Set and articulate the creative vision; raise the standard of craft across copy, design, film, digital, social, experiential.
• Lead narrative development, and platform thinking; ensure ideas are culturally resonant and strategically grounded.
• Guide work from pitch through production, including casting, music, edit, post, and delivery across channels.
• Client Partnership
• Act as a trusted advisor to senior stakeholders; present work with conviction and clarity.
• Translate business goals into creative briefs and platforms; proactively identify opportunities for growth and innovation.
• Honour the brand's heritage while modernising expression and behaviour across touch-points.
• Maintain coherence across global markets while enabling local relevance and nuance.
• Team Development
• Mentor, coach, and grow creative talent; create space for emerging voices.
• Foster a rich culture that prizes curiosity, craft, and accountability.
• Integrated Campaign Development
• Lead end-to-end creative for 360 campaigns across paid, owned, and earned channels (film/TV, digital, social, influencer, experiential, CRM/web, retail).
• Partner with strategy, data/analytics, media, and production to ensure ideas are insight-led and executional excellent.
• Champion test-and-learn, creative optimisation, and performance storytelling.
• Establish clear briefing, review, and decision-making rituals; streamline collaboration with account and production.

Requirements:

• Experience leading and inspiring global or multi-market teams.
• A portfolio of platform-level ideas and campaigns that moved culture and delivered results.
• Demonstrated mastery across integrated channels: film/content, digital/social, influencer, experiential, CRM/web, retail/e-commerce.
• Fluency in current trends, platforms, and emerging technologies.
• Exceptional storytelling, presentation, and client leadership skills; comfortable with C-suite conversations and high-stakes decisions.
• Deep production experience from pre-pro through post; ability to protect the idea through execution.
• Courage to challenge conventions, take smart risks, and defend great work while staying open and collaborative.
• Passion and track record in developing emerging talent and building creative cultures.
• Proven ability to build strong client relationships and deliver tangible business outcomes

Nice to Have:

• Experience stewarding legacy brands through modernisation or repositioning.
• Global market experience and sensitivity to cultural nuance.
• Category experience in high-velocity consumer brands.

How We Help You Thrive:

• 25 days annual leave + 1 Volunteer Day
• Bupa Healthcare
• Enhanced Maternity, Adoption, and Shared Parental Leave
• Flexible Working Model (core hours: 10am – 4pm)
• 1.5:1 Matching Pension Structure
• Wellbeing & Health: Up to £25/month towards fitness, Unmind, LifeWorks, annual eye tests, development budgets, and wellness programs
• Season Ticket Loan and Cycle to Work Scheme
• Life Assurance

Our ambition is to attract the very best diverse talent to Ogilvy, and to be the employer of choice in the UK. We want everyone to feel welcome when they join us, and once they're here, for them to want to stay with us, grow their career, and to feel they belong with us.

We are an equal opportunity employer and we're committed to creating an inclusive, welcoming environment for everyone who wants to work at Ogilvy. For us, diversity, equity and inclusion is integrated into everything that we do. We believe that for creativity to flourish, everything about how we work must have diversity at its core. Your race, colour, ethnic, religion, gender, gender identity, national origin, sexual orientation, age, marital status, disability, have no bearing on our hiring decisions, but we encourage everyone to feel free to express their true selves in an environment we are consistently striving to make as inclusive as possible.

We aim to facilitate an accessible and positive application experience for all candidates. If you require any adjustments from us to support you through the process or expect to require any adjustments to working conditions to be able to best perform in the role, please let us know. We are happy to consider all reasonable adjustments.

If you live with a disability and you would like to take advantage of our offer of a guaranteed interview under the Disability Confident Scheme, please ensure you fill out our voluntary Equal Opportunities Questionnaire when applying.