Associate Director, Brand Experience Strategy

About dentsu Merkle, a dentsu company, powers the experience economy. As the only consultancy in the world with a heritage in data science and business performance, Merkle’s 16,000+ designers, strategists, technologists, and data professionals have been recognized for excellence by top analyst firms for digital experience and marketing, commerce, loyalty services and solutions, data management and activation, analytics and data science, engineering and technology integration, and CRM. An award winner in experience innovation, market research, AI strategy consulting, and creative commerce, Merkle is the #1 global Salesforce agency partner, the 2025 Braze global services partner of the year, the #1 global Google Analytics partner, a global platinum Adobe partner, and a founding global Figma service partner. Merkle operates in 30+ countries throughout the Americas, EMEA, and APAC.

dentsu

We power the experience economy.

Customer Relationship Marketing (CRM)Enterprise Technology ServicesAnalyticsData SourcingExperience and PersonalizationPerformance MediaCustomer StrategyCustomer LoyaltyAddressable AdvertisingIdentity Resolution

D

merkle.com

10,001+ employees

Business Consulting and Services

Columbia, MD

1988

Privately Held

232k LinkedIn followers

• Business-Driven and Creatively Obsessed. We are dedicated to helping our clients achieve growth. We understand the challenge of standing out in an increasingly competitive marketplace. We recognize that experiences are becoming indistinguishable across industries, and new technologies can both enable creativity and risk commoditization. In this context, the need for a distinct competitive edge is crucial. We believe that embracing creativity is key for sustainable business growth. However, the conventional definition of creativity will not suffice. Our view on creativity goes beyond norms; it’s not just how we execute, but a mindset that permeates our organization and our clients’ businesses.
• We call it Transformative Creativity. It’s outcome-focused creativity unleashed to solve business problems. This unique brand of creativity sets us apart and drives our clients to success.

• 6+ years developing integrated brand strategies, with at least 2 years in experiential, events, shopper or retail-strategy (or equivalent)
• Experience in the spirits/alcoholic beverage category preferred; experience in other beverage or CPG categories will also be considered
• Acts as a catalyst to creative, media, data, account and other brand teams in finding new ways to add value to brand experiences and identifying future opportunities
• Demonstrates the maturity and leadership to be a key player on a collaborative, multi-disciplinary cross-agency team
• Demonstrates proficiency in using and translating all types of data into insights that drive creative thinking and client growth
• Proactively seeks out opportunities to make the work better in a collaborative way
• Has a passion for solving problems and is comfortable using AI as a tool to work faster and sharpen thinking
• Builds strong relationships with middle-level marketing clients and earns their trust and respect
• Mentors and develops strategists, and demonstrates and fosters a collaborative work environment in which ideas flourish
• We aspire to be the most integrated network in the world for a lot of reasons. A big one is to make sure people always have your back. We don’t want talent to be islands at Dentsu Creative. We want this to be the place where you can do the work of your life while having a life. This means offering an inclusive culture that embraces individual ways of working - a culture that values compensating employees for their contributions in a multitude of ways. For everything we ask of our people to do right by our clients and creative standards, we commit to giving back equally in investing in your unique career aspirations and learning and development needs. Seeing and celebrating our people is where we find joy. When you are a part of our creative network, you get an all-access pass to our global playground. There’s a purposeful, flexible infrastructure for you to jump toward initiatives that excite you in partnership with specialists in entertainment, experience, data, earned attention and more. Your voice and unique lived experience are beyond valued. We want you to be loud, raise your hand and leave your imprint on how we continue building our creative culture while shaping what the very future of creativity can be. So, why not choose your own adventure? Let us be your springboard.

• Medical, vision, and dental insurance,
• Life insurance,
• Short-term and long-term disability insurance,
• 401k,
• Flexible paid time off,
• At least 15 paid holidays per year,
• Paid sick and safe leave, and
• Paid parental leave.
• Dentsu also complies with applicable state and local laws regarding employee leave benefits, including, but not limited to providing time off pursuant to the Colorado Healthy Families and Workplaces Act, in accordance with its plans and policies. For further details regarding Dentsu benefits, please visit www.dentsubenefitsplus.com.
• To begin the application process, please click on the “Apply” button at the top of this job posting. Applications will be reviewed on an ongoing basis, and qualified candidates will be contacted for next steps.