Creative Strategist Senior

Why USAA?

At USAA, our mission is to empower our members to achieve financial security through highly competitive products, exceptional service and trusted advice. We seek to be the #1 choice for the military community and their families.

Embrace a fulfilling career at USAA, where our core values – honesty, integrity, loyalty and service – define how we treat each other and our members. Be part of what truly makes us special and impactful.

We are proud to support active-duty military spouses. USAA roles may offer remote or hybrid flexibility for active-duty military spouses consistent with applicable policy and business needs.

The Opportunity

Our Creative Strategist Senior translates business priorities, audience insights, and USAA’s brand strategy into compelling creative strategies that strengthen relevance, deepen trust, and drive growth. Connects the needs of prospective and existing members with distinctive storytelling across channels and the marketing journey. Develops clear, actionable creative briefs that align stakeholders and guide creative development. Partners across Marketing to connect creative decisions to meaningful member and business outcomes while reinforcing USAA’s mission and a unified brand.

We offer a flexible work environment that requires an individual to be in the office 4 days per week. This position can be based in one of the following locations: San Antonio, TX, Plano, TX, Phoenix, AZ, Charlotte, NC, Colorado Springs, CO, and Tampa, FL.

Relocation assistance is not available for this position.

What you'll do:

• Develops creative strategy for assigned campaigns and initiatives, translating business objectives, audience priorities, and the master brand platform into focused creative recommendations. 
• Applies USAA’s understanding of the military community and the master brand platform to campaign-level strategy, messaging, and storytelling.
• Creates concise, actionable creative briefs that define the business challenge, audience, desired response, core insight, messaging priorities, and creative guardrails. 
• Applies the master brand platform to campaign-level creative strategy and messaging, ensuring assigned initiatives reinforce a consistent and distinctive expression of USAA.
• Develops messaging and storytelling recommendations across acquisition, engagement, and retention, adapting recommendations to audience and channel needs. 
• Clarifies requirements, consolidates stakeholder feedback, and confirms alignment before creative development.
• Partners closely with in-house creative teams and external agencies from briefing through development, representing the strategy, providing actionable feedback, and evaluating concepts against the approved brief, master brand platform, audience needs, and intended outcomes.
• Applies audience insights, creative testing findings, campaign performance, and other available evidence to refine campaign-level strategy, messaging, and recommendations.
• Applies established strategic frameworks and emerging cultural, channel, and creative practices, including responsible AI use, to improve the relevance, quality, and efficiency of strategic work. 
• Resolves routine questions and escalates significant or conflicting direction promptly to the Lead Creative Strategist reduce avoidable back-and-forth and rework. 
• Ensures risks associated with business activities are effectively identified, measured, monitored, and controlled in accordance with risk and compliance policies and procedures.

What you have:

• Bachelor's degree; OR 4 years of relevant education and/or experience.
• 7-8 years of experience in creative strategy, brand strategy, account planning, integrated marketing strategy, or a related discipline. 
• Demonstrated experience independently developing creative strategy for integrated marketing campaigns. 
• Demonstrated ability to translate audience research and business objectives into concise creative briefs and messaging recommendations that creative teams can execute. 
• Experience collaborating with creative teams, cross-functional stakeholders, and agencies to clarify direction and resolve feedback. 
• Experience applying audience insights, creative testing, and campaign performance findings to refine campaign-level creative strategy and messaging. 
• Knowledge of brand building, consumer behavior, and channel-specific storytelling across digital, social, video, and other marketing channels. 
• Demonstrated ability to present strategic recommendations clearly and manage multiple assignments and deadlines. 

What sets you apart:

• Connect business strategy to creative strategy
  Translate defined business objectives, audience needs and brand direction into a focused creative problem and actionable strategy for assigned initiatives.
• Find the insight that unlocks the work
  Connect available audience insights, cultural context and member needs to identify the human tension or truth most relevant to the assignment.
• Bring a clear strategic point of view
  Make and clearly articulates strategic recommendations rather than simply capturing stakeholder input or facilitating the process.
• Inspire rather than constrains creative teams
  You write focused briefs and provides strategic guidance that inspires ideas while leaving room for creative exploration.
• Make the work feel distinctly USAA
  Apply the master brand platform and USAA’s understanding of the military community to campaign-level messaging and storytelling.
• Is a trusted creative partner
  Work alongside creative teams from briefing through development, providing constructive strategic feedback that keeps the work true to the brief and brand.

Compensation range: The salary range for this position is: $103,450 - $197,730.

USAA does not provide visa sponsorship for this role. Please do not apply for this role if at any time (now or in the future) you will need immigration support (i.e., H-1B, TN, STEM OPT Training Plans, etc.).

Compensation: USAA has an effective process for assessing market data and establishing ranges to ensure we remain competitive. You are paid within the salary range based on your experience and market data of the position. The actual salary for this role may vary by location.

Employees may be eligible for pay incentives based on overall corporate and individual performance and at the discretion of the USAA Board of Directors.

The above description reflects the details considered necessary to describe the principal functions of the job and should not be construed as a detailed description of all the work requirements that may be performed in the job.

Benefits: At USAA our employees enjoy best-in-class benefits to support their physical, financial, and emotional wellness. These benefits include comprehensive medical, dental and vision plans, 401(k), pension, life insurance, parental benefits, adoption assistance, paid time off program with paid holidays plus 16 paid volunteer hours, and various wellness programs. Additionally, our career path planning and continuing education assists employees with their professional goals.

For more details on our outstanding benefits, visit our benefits page on USAAjobs.com.

Applications for this position are accepted on an ongoing basis, this posting will remain open until the position is filled. Thus, interested candidates are encouraged to apply the same day they view this posting.

USAA is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, or status as a protected veteran.