Marketing & Brand Strategist

About the Role

This is not a campaign management role. This is not a content calendar role. This is a thinking role — one that requires the ability to translate business objectives into brand architecture, and brand architecture into executable communications strategy. You will work across multiple ETICUL client engagements simultaneously, owning the strategic intelligence layer that governs every creative and communications decision the MCO makes. You will sit at the intersection of the Intelligence and Strategy pillars of the ETICUL MCO model — taking AI-assisted competitor and market intelligence and converting it into positioning frameworks, messaging hierarchies, campaign rationales and 90-day roadmaps that the execution team can act on with precision. Your output goes directly to client leadership and feeds every downstream deliverable.

Responsibilities

• Lead brand positioning for each ETICUL client engagement — defining what the brand stands for, who it serves, how it differentiates and what category it owns or intends to own
• Build messaging hierarchies: primary brand statement, audience-specific value propositions, proof points and approved vocabulary for each client
• Conduct positioning workshops with client leadership to extract strategic intent, align stakeholders and validate assumptions with market evidence
• Identify and close positioning gaps — where the brand is unclear, inconsistent or undefended against competitors
• Interpret the AI-assisted intelligence brief produced by ETICUL's intelligence layer and convert raw signal data into strategic insight
• Map the competitive landscape for each client: who is saying what, where they are winning, where they are vulnerable and what the uncontested positioning space looks like
• Identify category opportunities — spaces in the market where the client can plant a flag before a competitor does
• Track and report on share of voice, message penetration and positioning shifts in the competitive set on a monthly basis
• Develop campaign rationales — the strategic argument for why a campaign angle is the right one, not just a brief for what to produce
• Write and own the 90-day execution roadmap for each client engagement: which campaigns, which channels, which audiences, which KPIs, in which sequence
• Brief the creative, digital and PR teams with strategic context that is specific, evidence-based and actionable — not generic or aspirational
• Review all major deliverables before client presentation to ensure strategic consistency — if a piece of work contradicts the positioning, it does not go out
• Present strategic recommendations to client leadership with clarity and confidence — you can hold a room and defend a positioning decision under scrutiny
• Lead quarterly MCO strategy reviews with each client: what has been achieved, what the intelligence is revealing, what the strategy needs to be for the next quarter
• Identify when a client's strategy needs to evolve — market conditions change, and the strategist is the person who sees it first and acts on it
• Build strategic trust with client leadership — the goal is to be the person they call when they are making a brand or communications decision, not just the person who delivers a document

Requirements

• 4–8 years of brand strategy, communications strategy or marketing strategy experience — agency, consulting or in-house B2B environment
• Demonstrable track record of building brand positioning from research: you have done this, not just assisted with it
• Strong analytical capability — you read market data, competitor intelligence and audience insight and form a strategic view, not just a summary
• Exceptional written communication — your strategy documents, positioning statements and briefs are clear, precise and standalone without explanation
• Confident presenter — you can take a room of sceptical senior executives through a positioning recommendation and land it
• Deep understanding of B2B buying behaviour — how institutional buyers discover, evaluate and select professional service firms and premium suppliers
• Ability to manage multiple concurrent client engagements without losing strategic depth on any of them

Nice to Have

• Experience with AI-assisted market research tools — Semrush, Brandwatch, Crayon, SparkToro or equivalent
• Understanding of category design methodology — positioning a brand as a category creator rather than a category participant
• Experience in sectors relevant to ETICUL's client base: IT services, FoodTech, biotech, manufacturing, professional services or consulting
• Exposure to account-based marketing (ABM) strategy for B2B pipeline development
• Experience writing and editing thought leadership content — you understand what makes intellectual authority credible, not just well-written
• Familiarity with brand architecture for multi-product or multi-audience companies

What We Offer

• Ownership of brand strategy across multiple real, scaling client businesses — not internal projects or speculative pitches
• Direct access to founders, CEOs and COOs at each client — your strategic recommendations go to the top, not a middle manager
• Exposure to AI-assisted intelligence tools and methodologies that most brand strategists do not work with until they are at Director level
• A structured MCO environment — your strategy work will be executed properly, not sit in a document that nobody implements
• Multi-sector exposure across IT services, FoodTech, manufacturing and professional services in rapid succession — a career accelerator that generalist agency roles rarely provide
• A clear path to Head of Strategy or MCO Lead as ETICUL scales to 10+ client engagements — the person who owns strategy at ETICUL will become its most senior editorial voice