Brand & Creative Manager - Middle East & Asia

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 comme