Job Description
Brand & Creative Manager – Middle East & Asia
Location: Bangalore – must work from Bangalore office not remote working
Reports to: Head of Growth Marketing Hub & Innovation – Middle East & Asia
Direct reports: Digital Content Designer
Purpose of Role
The Brand & Creative Manager is the divisional specialist lead for Brand & Creative capability across 30+ schools in the Middle East, India and Asia. The role translates agreed school positioning, USPs, proof points and customer insight into distinctive creative expression that builds preference, strengthens differentiation and supports qualified demand and enrolment growth.
Operating at portfolio and capability level, the role leads priority creative direction, improves creative effectiveness through customer and performance insight, and builds scalable approaches that raise quality without creating uniformity across individual school brands. The role leads the Digital Content Designer and directs external creative, content and production partners within the Divisional Marketing COE.
Role in the Operating Model / Scope
Operates as the divisional specialist lead for Brand & Creative, primarily at portfolio and capability level rather than as a dedicated creative resource for individual schools.
Regional Marketing Managers own integrated school Marketing strategy and agreed school positioning; this role owns the creative expression and Marketing activation of that agreed positioning.
Group Brand & Communications owns the ISP corporate brand, enterprise brand governance and common standards; this role applies those standards across divisional Marketing while preserving legitimate school and market differentiation.
Creative capability is prioritised through the Divisional Marketing COE according to agreed commercial priorities and impact; the role leads priority campaigns and interventions and directs specialist production capacity.
The Digital Content Designer and external partners provide scalable specialist execution; School Marketing teams retain routine local creative execution and authentic local content capture within agreed frameworks.
Works with Performance Marketing, Digital, CRM and PR & Communications so creative supports preference, qualified demand and conversion; PR & Communications retains ownership of reputation, earned narrative, thought leadership and stakeholder communications.
Key Responsibilities
- Creative Expression & Positioning Activation - Translate agreed school positioning, USPs, proof points and customer insight into distinctive, scalable creative direction and priority interventions that strengthen differentiation and preference.
- Creative Direction & Priority Campaigns - Set creative direction and lead concepts for priority divisional and school growth campaigns, ensuring work is distinctive, audience-relevant and aligned to commercial objectives.
- Creative Effectiveness & Optimisation - Use customer, channel and performance insight to improve creative effectiveness across the Marketing funnel, balancing brand-building and direct-response objectives appropriately.
- Portfolio Prioritisation & Capacity - Direct limited specialist creative capacity towards the schools, campaigns and opportunities with the greatest strategic and commercial impact, making trade-offs visible when demand exceeds capacity.
- Storytelling & Multi-Channel Creative - Turn authentic school proof into compelling Marketing stories and direct effective creative application across priority paid, social, web, CRM, video, events and other customer touchpoints.
- Scalable Creative Systems & Brand Quality - Establish reusable creative approaches, templates, briefing standards and production methods that improve quality, consistency and speed while protecting individual school differentiation and applying relevant ISP and school-brand standards.
- Team, Agency & Production Leadership - Lead and develop the Digital Content Designer and direct external creative, content and production partners, setting priorities, quality expectations and delivery standards.
- Creative Capability & Innovation - Raise creative capability across Marketing teams through practical guidance and feedback, and evaluate relevant tools, AI-enabled production and emerging practices that can improve quality, performance and efficiency.
Functional / Hard Skills
- Brand & Creative Activation - Deep ability to translate agreed positioning, propositions, customer insight and proof into distinctive Marketing expression across multiple brands.
- Creative Direction & Concept Development - Strong ability to turn commercial and Marketing objectives into compelling campaign concepts, visual direction and storytelling.
- Creative Production & Scalable Delivery - Ability to direct internal and external production and establish repeatable creative systems that improve quality, speed and efficiency.
- Performance-Led Creative - Strong understanding of how creative influences preference, response and conversion, with the ability to use evidence to improve effectiveness.
- Multi-Brand & Multi-Channel Creative Leadership - Ability to lead creative across brands, markets, audiences and channels while balancing consistency with legitimate local relevance.
- Brand Governance Application - Strong understanding of brand architecture and governance, with the judgement to apply enterprise standards and escalate where clarification is required.
Leadership / soft skills
- Creative & Brand Judgement - Maintains a high bar for distinctiveness, relevance and craft and can objectively explain why creative is strong or weak.
- Commercial & Customer Thinking - Connects creative decisions to customer perception, preference, qualified demand and enrolment outcomes.
- Strategic Prioritisation - Focuses limited specialist capacity on the interventions most likely to create material portfolio and commercial impact.
- Influence & Constructive Challenge - Challenges weak briefs, generic creative and unclear propositions while influencing stakeholders without relying on direct authority.
- Leadership & Collaboration - Develops creative talent and works effectively across specialist, market-facing, school, Group and agency teams to deliver integrated outcomes.
Qualifications & Experience
Essential
- Substantial experience in brand, creative, content or integrated Marketing roles, including leadership of creative direction and brand activation across campaigns, channels and customer touchpoints.
- Strong portfolio demonstrating work personally led or materially shaped, with evidence of the strategic problem, creative solution and customer, brand or commercial impact.
- Demonstrated multi-brand and/or multi-market experience, balancing brand consistency with local market and audience relevance.
- Experience translating agreed positioning, propositions, audience insight and proof points into campaigns, messaging and creative expression.
- Experience directing designers, creative teams, agencies and/or production partners, setting standards and building capability.
- Strong exposure to performance Marketing and conversion principles, with experience using performance evidence to improve creative decisions.
- Experience working cross-functionally with performance, digital, CRM, communications and commercial or market-facing teams.
Advantageous / preferred = Experience in education, hospitality, retail, healthcare or another multi-site, service-led or high-consideration consumer category.
Core KPIs / Success Measures
- Brand & Creative Effectiveness - Improvement in the clarity, distinctiveness and effectiveness of creative expression across priority school brands.
- Creative Contribution to Growth - Evidence that creative optimisation improves relevant preference, qualified demand and conversion outcomes.
- Priority Campaign Impact - Effectiveness of priority campaigns against agreed brand, customer and commercial objectives.
- Creative Delivery & Efficiency - Improvement in quality, speed and scalability, including reduced avoidable rework and low-value ad-hoc demand.
- Creative Capability at Scale - Improvement in creative standards, tools and capability across markets and schools, including effective use of internal and external delivery capacity.
This person will be asked to travel to Middle East, Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand from time to time, therefore they must be willing to travel.
ISP Principles
Begin with our children and students. Our children and students are at the heart of what we do. Simply, their success is our success. Wellbeing and safety are both essential for learners and learning. Therefore, we are consistent in identifying potential safeguarding
and Health & Safety issues and acting and following up on all concerns appropriately.
Treat everyone with care and respect. We look after one another, embrace similarities and differences and promote the well-being of self and others.
Operate effectively. We focus relentlessly on the things that are most important and will make the most difference. We apply school policies and procedures and embody the shared ideas of our community.
Are financially responsible. We make financial choices carefully based on the needs of the children, students and our schools.
Learn continuously. Getting better is what drives us. We positively engage with personal and professional development and school improvement.
ISP Commitment to Safeguarding Principles
ISP is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people and expects all staff and volunteers to share this commitment. All post holders are subject to appropriate vetting procedures, including an online due diligence search, references and satisfactory Criminal Background Checks or equivalent covering the previous 10 years’ employment history.
ISP Commitment to Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging
ISP is committed to strengthening our inclusive culture by identifying, hiring, developing, and retaining high-performing teammates regardless of gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation and gender expression, age, disability status, neurodivergence, socio-economic background or other demographic characteristics. Candidates who share our vision and principles and are interested in contributing to the success of ISP through this role are strongly encouraged to apply.
