Sr. Strategist in Oakland, California at H/L Agency

Bring Culture, Insights, and Strategy Together

At H/L, we believe meaningful marketing begins with understanding people — their experiences, behaviors, communities, and culture. We are looking for a Senior Strategist to help bring these perspectives into integrated campaigns for automotive, lifestyle, insurance, and other consumer brands.

Working closely with the Director of Multicultural Marketing, this role will help translate cultural and consumer insights into strategic recommendations, campaign approaches, and meaningful brand experiences across channels. The ideal candidate brings experience in strategy, communications planning, or integrated marketing and knows how to connect insights, creativity, and collaboration to develop work that resonates with diverse audiences.

As a member of the multicultural marketing team, you’ll partner with account, creative, media, social, and production teams to help shape culturally relevant work and support the development of impactful client solutions.

This is a hybrid role, with both office-based work at the H/L Oakland, CA office and remote work.

Your Role and Impact

Creating Connections Through Culture

• Partner with multicultural marketing leadership to support strategic development across client work
• Bring cultural insights and audience understanding into campaign recommendations and brand storytelling
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to develop integrated marketing solutions across channels
• Contribute to proactive planning and opportunities that strengthen multicultural thinking across the agency
• Help deliver meaningful work across consumer categories and brands

Develop Strategic Thinking

• Partner with the Director of Multicultural Marketing to develop strategic briefs, messaging frameworks, and campaign points of view that connect business goals with consumer needs. Translate cultural, behavioral, and audience insights into actionable recommendations
• Identify opportunities to strengthen brand relevance through culturally informed strategies

Shape Integrated Campaigns

• Help bring culturally relevant campaigns to life by collaborating with creative, media, social, production, and account teams across brand, social, influencer, experiential, and media channels.
• Partner with cross-functional teams to bring strategic ideas from concept through execution
• Help build connected storytelling approaches across paid, owned, earned, and social platforms

Drive Insights & Optimization

• Analyze audience, media, and campaign performance insights to identify opportunities for improvement
• Apply cultural, audience, and performance insights to inform recommendations, optimize campaign approaches, and uncover opportunities to strengthen brand connections.
• Stay connected to evolving cultural trends, consumer behaviors, and platform dynamics

Strengthen Client & Agency Impact

• Support day-to-day strategy development across campaigns and initiatives by helping translate direction, insights, and objectives into actionable recommendations
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to ensure multicultural considerations are thoughtfully integrated into both multicultural and broader market opportunities
• Support proactive planning efforts that strengthen culturally relevant work across the agency
• Partner with the Director of Multicultural Marketing to support strategic planning and campaign development
• Contribute cultural and audience perspectives to client conversations, campaign planning, and agency initiatives

Your Strategic Expertise

We’re looking for someone with hands-on experience in strategy, cultural insights, and integrated marketing who can translate consumer understanding into actionable recommendations and impactful campaign approaches.

You have:

• 5+ years of experience in strategy, communications planning, brand planning, or integrated marketing within an advertising, media, or creative agency environment
• Experience developing strategic recommendations, briefs, and campaign frameworks
• Strong understanding of multicultural audiences, including AACM, ACM, and HCM communities, at local and national levels
• Ability to connect qualitative and quantitative insights to meaningful marketing strategies
• Experience collaborating with creative and media teams throughout campaign development
• Strong understanding of media ecosystems, audience segmentation, platform behaviors, and performance metrics
• Strong communication and presentation skills

Preferred Experience

You may also bring:

• Experience with automotive, lifestyle, QSR, retail, insurance, or other consumer brands
• Experience navigating cultural nuance, identity dynamics, and acculturation
• Experience working across both multicultural and general market campaigns

Bonus Experience

• Spanish-language fluency or additional multilingual capabilities
• Ability to support primary research in brand studies and consumer behavior

Join Us!

If you’re passionate about bringing cultural insights, strategic thinking, and strong collaboration together to create meaningful marketing experiences, we’d love to hear from you. Join a team where you’ll help shape impactful work, partner across disciplines, and contribute to campaigns that connect brands with diverse audiences.

For SF Bay Area / California-based candidates: H/L provides projected compensation ranges for each position as an estimate of the company’s reasonable pay range for the role. The salary range for this position is expected to be between 90,000 – 115,000 annually. Actual compensation offered to a successful candidate will be determined based on a variety of factors, including the scope and responsibilities of the role, the candidate’s experience and qualifications, budget considerations, internal pay equity, geographic location, and market compensation data for similar positions. Compensation for the candidates outside of California is based on the same factors and varies by geographic area.

About H/L Agency

Since 1985, H/L has been fiercely independent and making Momentum. Our strengths include local and national media activations, creative development, insights and analytics, full-scale digital and video production, multicultural marketing, and PR.

We’re headquartered in Oakland, California, with people in 20 states and offices in Atlanta, Miami, Phoenix, and St. Louis. What unites H/Lers across the country is a common drive—to pioneer new ways to push clients’ businesses forward and serve the communities we call home. Learn more at www.hl.agency.

H/L participates in E-Verify and will provide the federal government with your Form I-9 information to confirm that you are authorized to work in the U.S. only after a job offer is accepted and Form I-9 is completed. For more information on E-Verify, please refer to the following attachments: EVerify Participation & IER Right to Work.