Creative Director (Cambridge, MA)
Who we are
At CarGurus (NASDAQ: CARG), our mission is to give people the power to reach their destination. We started as a small team of developers determined to bring trust and transparency to car shopping. Since then, our history of innovation and go-to-market acceleration has driven industry-leading growth. In fact, we’re the largest and fastest-growing automotive marketplace, and we’ve been profitable for over 15 years.
What we do
The market is evolving, and we are too, moving the entire automotive journey online and guiding our customers through every step. That includes everything from the sale of an old car to the financing, purchase, and delivery of a new one. Today, tens of millions of consumers visit CarGurus.com each month, and ~30,000 dealerships use our products. But they're not the only ones who love CarGurus—our employees do, too. We have a people-first culture that fosters kindness, collaboration, and innovation, and empowers our Gurus with tools to fuel their career growth. Disrupting a trillion-dollar industry requires fresh and diverse perspectives. Come join us for the ride!
Role overview
CarGurus is seeking an experienced Creative Director with a proven track record of bringing consumer brands to life. Reporting to the VP of Brand, you will build and mentor a small in-house team, augmenting our in-house talent with a network of freelancers and smaller agencies to deliver a variety of creative assets that supports all our Marketing efforts. As part of the overall brand team, you will serve as an evangelist for our brand identity and voice, ensuring that creative across our company works to represent our brand in a unified and effective way.
What you'll do
- Serve as the creative leader for CarGurus, refining our brand and bringing it to life through a broad range of touchpoints to build awareness, engagement and preference for CarGurus
- Partner with the Brand strategy team and our brand agency to provide input to their work, ensuring that their results meet the creative team needs for future iterations and applications
- Work with the broader marketing team to extend agency-led campaigns into a portfolio of media assets
- Build and develop an impactful in-house creative team while using a curated network of external partners to complete projects as needed
- Provide leadership for the ongoing interpretation and evolution of our brand standards in support of new applications across the business
- Concept and direct multimedia work including performance creatives, email templates, banner ads, digital videos, offline collateral, content marketing design assets and social media posts
- Continually update best practices for CarGurus to drive response and action from our creative efforts; incorporate up-to-date research and third party expertise (e.g. Google, Facebook, Media agency guidelines) to inform all our efforts
- Partner with UX design to evolve overall site branding and where visual design/messaging support is required to build/evolve specific elements of our site experience
- Ensure that creative projects are prioritized appropriately and delivered on time, on strategy and on budget
- Build out a team with a reputation for delivering on commitments, and for being a great team to work on and with
What you'll bring
- 10+ years in a creative role, with 5+ years of experience managing design and copy professionals. Visual design roots and some video production experience preferred
- Highly collaborative, you like to partner with and support the needs of a range of internal partners
- Experience mentoring a high-performance team. People leader who can identify, recruit and develop great talent to create premier work
- Love of design; you stay current and ahead of the latest design trends and digital advancements
- Experience with and appreciation for rigorously testing & optimizing creative to deliver performance
- Highly organized, with experience setting up internal process to receive, prioritize, and deliver on creative requests
- Fast paced, results-oriented and able to prioritize opposing demands for multiple internal partners
- Low-ego and willing to roll up sleeves, but skilled at delegating and coaching to manage team output
- Able to inspire great work from your team, whether designing a marketing campaign or a PowerPoint template
- Previous in-house tech/start up experience preferred
Working at CarGurus
We reward our Gurus’ curiosity and passion with best-in-class benefits and compensation, including equity for all employees, both when they start and as they continue to grow with us. Our career development and corporate giving programs, as well as our employee resource groups (ERGs) and communities, help people build connections while making an impact in personally meaningful ways. A flexible hybrid model and robust time off policies encourage work-life balance and individual well-being. Thoughtful perks like daily free lunch, a new car discount, meditation and fitness apps, commuting cost coverage, and more help our people create space for what matters most in their personal and professional lives.
We welcome all
CarGurus strives to be a place to which people can bring the ultimate expression of themselves and their potential—starting with our hiring process. We do not discriminate based on race, color, religion, national origin, age, sex, marital status, ancestry, physical or mental disability, veteran status, gender identity, or sexual orientation. We foster an inclusive environment that values people for their skills, experiences, and unique perspectives. That’s why we hope you’ll apply even if you don’t check every box listed in the job description. We want to know what only you can bring to CarGurus.
Additional information
US employees must provide proof of full vaccination against COVID-19 unless they have an approved medical or religious accommodation. #LI-Hybrid
