Brand and Creative Lead

Department: Marketing

Reports to: Head of Marketing

Location: Manchester (Hybrid)

Purpose of the Role

The Brand and Creative Lead will play a defining role in shaping the future of Ripe as we enter our next phase of growth: becoming the UK’s most recognised and trusted specialist insurance brand.

Working with a newly created brand identity (developed by our agency partner), this role will take the rebrand from concept to reality – leading its rollout across all customer-facing channels and ensuring it is brought to life consistently, creatively and effectively at every touchpoint.

Working closely with senior stakeholders in the business, the Brand and Creative Lead will translate business strategy into powerful creative platforms, scalable design systems and standout campaigns that drive growth, strengthen brand equity and position Ripe as the market leader in specialist insurance.

With a focus on harnessing emerging technologies, including AI, this role will also redefine how creative work is delivered - building a creative studio that enables Ripe to move faster and ultimately increase revenue.

Principal Accountabilities

Brand Activation and Stewardship

• Take ownership of Ripe’s newly created brand identity, working from the strategic and creative foundations developed with our agency partner to bring the brand to life across the business.

• Lead the rollout and activation of the new brand across all customer-facing channels and touchpoints, ensuring it is applied consistently while maximising its creative and commercial impact.

• Build on and evolve the new brand identity over time, establishing the creative ambition and direction required to make Ripe a distinctive, recognisable and category-leading brand.

• Establish the creative principles, standards and frameworks that embed the new identity across the organisation and ensure consistency across every customer touchpoint.

• Act as the ultimate creative guardian for Ripe and all of our heritage brands, ensuring all major brand activity remains true to the new identity while delivering against strategic and commercial objectives.

• Work with the Head of Marketing to shape the brand strategy for new acquisitions, helping determine whether acquired businesses should transition to the Ripe brand or retain and develop their existing brand identity.

• Create clear brand and creative guidelines for acquired businesses, particularly where existing identities are limited or underdeveloped, giving them the foundations needed to communicate consistently and effectively.

• Challenge conventional thinking and inspire the business to create work that is distinctive, memorable and culturally relevant, continually building the strength and value of the Ripe brand.

Creative Strategy & Commercial Impact

• Partner with channel owners to continually review and optimise creative performance, ensuring the ads running across paid social, digital, media, email and other customer-facing channels are working as hard as possible against agreed objectives

• Maximise the impact of Ripe’s media investment by ensuring the strongest creative is deployed across channels, using performance data to identify what is working, what isn’t and where creative needs to evolve

• Establish a test-and-learn approach to creative, working with channel teams to develop, test and iterate different creative concepts, formats and messages to continually improve effectiveness

• Balance brand-building with performance, ensuring creative strengthens the Ripe brand while also delivering against customer acquisition, engagement and commercial objectives

• Use customer insight, behavioural data and channel performance to inform creative decisions, turning learnings into actionable improvements across campaigns and future creative development

• Champion creative effectiveness as a commercial discipline, demonstrating the role great creative plays in improving media efficiency, maximising return on marketing investment and driving business growth

AI, Innovation & Future Creative Capability

• Lead the transformation of creative processes through the strategic adoption of AI and emerging technologies.

• Establish AI-enabled workflows that increase creative speed, quality and scalability while protecting creative excellence.

• Evaluate and embed emerging creative technologies including tools such as Runway, Claude, Midjourney, Adobe Firefly, Figma and Lovable where they create meaningful value.

• Build capability within the creative team to confidently use AI as a creative accelerator and innovation tool.

Creative Function Leadership

• Build, inspire and lead a high-performing creative function capable of delivering world-class brand work.

• Develop creative talent by coaching teams to improve conceptual thinking, storytelling, craft and commercial understanding.

• Create an environment where ambitious ideas, experimentation and innovation thrive.

• Define ways of working, creative processes and operating models that enable greater efficiency.

• Build strong partnerships with the Board, SLT, Marketing, Product and Digital teams

• Lead relationships with specialist agencies, creative partners and freelancers where required.

• Identify opportunities to continually upskill the creative team, particularly in AI, digital experience and emerging creative disciplines.

Brand Experience, UX & Customer Journey Leadership

• Own the creative vision across the end-to-end customer experience, ensuring every interaction strengthens the Ripe brand.

• Define design principles and experience standards that balance brand expression, usability and commercial effectiveness.

• Partner with Product, Digital and Marketing teams to influence customer experiences from strategy through to execution.

• Champion customer-centred design, ensuring insight, testing and behavioural understanding shape creative decisions.

• Provide strategic oversight of key customer journeys across websites, digital products, campaigns and emerging channels.

• Ensure every customer touchpoint delivers a coherent, distinctive and memorable brand experience.

• Drive continuous improvement through experimentation, optimisation and performance analysis.

What Success Looks Like

• Ripe becomes a distinctive, recognised and admired brand within specialist insurance.

• The brand develops a clear and ownable creative identity that is consistently executed across all channels.

• The creative function operates as a strategic business partner, not simply a delivery team.

• AI-enabled ways of working increase speed, capability and innovation.

• The team delivers ambitious, industry-leading creative work that raises the profile of Ripe.

• Major brand initiatives and campaigns successfully strengthen brand equity and drive growth.

• Ripe develops a reputation for creativity, innovation and category leadership.

Experience

Essential

• Significant experience in a senior creative or brand leadership role, for example as a Creative Director within an agency environment or an equivalent in-house role

• A strong track record of developing distinctive brand ideas, creative platforms and campaigns that have built recognition, engagement and commercial value

• A portfolio that demonstrates exceptional creative thinking and brand-building, with the ability to turn a brand strategy into a compelling creative idea and bring it to life across multiple channels

• Experience does not need to come from large, mass-market consumer brands; we are more interested in the quality, originality and effectiveness of the thinking and evidence of creating brands that stand out in their category

• Experience taking a brand identity or creative platform and turning it into a living, evolving brand, establishing the principles and creative direction that enable others to execute it consistently

• Commercially minded, with a strong understanding of how creative can improve brand salience, marketing effectiveness and business performance, not simply win creative awards

Desirable

• Experience within financial services, insurance or other regulated industries.

• Experience leading creative transformation programmes.

• Experience establishing design systems and scalable creative operations.

• Experience working across multiple brands or portfolios.

• Experience building a famous consumer brand or challenger brand.

Technical Knowledge

• Expert knowledge of creative disciplines including brand identity, design systems, digital experience and campaign development.

• Strong understanding of UX, content, motion and digital design principles.

• Expert knowledge of Adobe Creative Suite and Figma.

• Practical experience using AI creative tools and automation platforms.

• Understanding of creative operations, workflow optimisation and scalable design practices.

Personal Attributes

• Visionary creative thinker with the ability to translate ambition into action.

• Strategic, commercially minded and comfortable operating at senior leadership level.

• Passionate about building brands that people remember.

• Inspirational leader who develops people and raises standards.

• Curious, innovative and excited by the possibilities of emerging technology.

• Exceptional storyteller and communicator.

• Confident challenging convention and making bold creative decisions.

• Able to balance creative excellence with commercial reality.

• Driven by impact, not simply output.

Professional Qualifications

Desirable

• Degree or equivalent qualification in Design, Creative Direction, Brand Strategy or a related discipline.

• Ongoing professional development in AI, creative leadership, innovation or brand strategy.