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Creative Strategist

Bedford
Posted about 14 hours ago
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About the Role

A fast-growing, award-winning B2B agency that works with some of the biggest food and drink brands in the world. They help those brands grow in the places people eat, drink, work, travel and socialise away from home. The strategy team is expanding and they now need a Creative Strategist to sit at the exact point where strategy becomes creative.

The briefs are rarely dull. One day it's how a brand wins with chefs. The next it's what makes people order differently in a pub, café or QSR, or how a big commercial opportunity becomes an idea people actually want to engage with.

Your job is to find the organising idea, creative territory or story that makes the strategy come alive. You'll take insight, audience understanding and propositions and turn them into briefs and creative platforms that give creative teams something exciting to work with.

This isn't an insight or market research role. It's about the idea.

You'll work with strategists, creatives and client teams from the start of a project, helping shape the thinking rather than arriving once the brief is fixed.

What You'll Be Doing

  • Turning insight, audience understanding and strategic direction into clear, inspiring creative briefs
  • Finding the organising ideas, creative territories and platforms that give campaigns a distinctive point of view
  • Building narratives, stories and messaging frameworks that make complex challenges feel simple and easy to buy into
  • Leading and contributing to ideation sessions and workshops
  • Challenging and sharpening creative ideas against the brief, and protecting the central thought
  • Helping take creative platforms across channels, touchpoints and customer journeys without losing what made the idea strong
  • Getting stuck into briefs across the client base, from major campaigns and brand platforms to pitches and new propositions
  • Bringing creative strategy thinking into the agency's own new business
  • Contributing a point of view on what's happening across food, drink, hospitality and Away From Home, to help build the agency's creative reputation and thought leadership
  • Helping the agency get better at briefing and collaborating, so strategy and creative feel connected from day one

Reasons to use Rodeo

I’m in my final year doing Economics and I don’t know whether to apply for grad schemes now or do a masters first. What do you think?

Honest answer — it depends on where you want to end up. A lot of top grad schemes (Big 4, civil service, banking) don’t need a masters. Let’s look at the ones you’d be competitive for now, and we can decide if a masters actually adds anything.

Also worth knowing: most autumn 2026 applications are open now. Timing matters more than you think.

Start with a chat, not a search bar

Grad scheme, placement, apprenticeship? Not sure what you want yet — that's fine. Your agent talks it through with you and turns "I have no idea" into a shortlist.

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Graduate Consultant — 2026 Scheme

PwC·London, UK
£35,000/yr

Why you're a good match

Strong

Your economics background and your summer at a regional bank line up with what PwC looks for on the consulting scheme. Applications close in four weeks.

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It searches the market for you

Every day your agent scans the market matching roles against what actually matters to you, not just keywords on a CV.

Why you're a good match

You’ve got the grades and the economics background, and your bank internship is exactly the experience this scheme looks for. Apply soon — deadlines close within the month.

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Strong

Experience fit

Your summer at the bank plus your econometrics coursework map directly to the day-one responsibilities on this scheme — client modelling, market briefings, and deal support.

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Strong

Only hits

No noise. No "maybe this fits." Just roles with a clear explanation of why they're right — and where to focus when applying.

Who This Suits

You'll have proven experience in creative strategy, planning, brand strategy, creative development or a closely related agency-side role. You can show where your thinking has helped unlock or improve the creative work, and you've taken projects from insight and proposition through to creative brief, platform and campaign.

You'll be:

  • A strategic thinker with a strong creative instinct, who can simplify complexity into a compelling idea
  • A strong writer, whether that's a brief, a narrative, a territory name or the line that makes it all click
  • Naturally curious, someone who notices things and makes connections
  • A collaborator who builds ideas with other people rather than disappearing off to write the answer alone
  • Happy to challenge and be challenged
  • Commercially aware, with a good instinct for the difference between an interesting idea and one that works in the real world
  • Confident presenting to clients and running workshops
  • Interested in food, drink, people, brands and behaviour, and excited by briefs that go beyond traditional consumer advertising, from chefs and operators to pubs, cafés, restaurants and hospitality groups

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Food, drink, hospitality, B2B or Away From Home experience is useful but not essential. An eye for visual detail and creative craft is a plus, even if you're not a designer.

Current titles might include Creative Strategist, Strategy Planner, Brand Strategist, Senior Planner, Campaign Strategist, Integrated Planner or Creative Planner. Titles vary, so if the work sounds like you, get in touch.

Interested?

Message me or apply, and I'll give you the full picture on the agency in a confidential conversation.

DNA is committed to promoting a diverse and inclusive community and welcomes applications from candidates of all backgrounds.

Although we try to respond to all applications, unfortunately, due to the high number we receive, we are unable to respond to all of those who are unsuccessful.

We offer up to £250 in vouchers for any referrals who pass their probationary period, so if you know anyone who might be interested please forward the link to the job advert to them.

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Location

Bedford, England, United Kingdom

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