Senior Strategist

Overview

Are you ready to shape the cultural narrative for one of the world’s most iconic global sportswear and football brands? Aquent has partnered with a leading experiential and creative agency to find a visionary strategic leader for a high-impact research sprint. In this role, you will dive deep into grassroots subcultures, fandom, and community codes to turn complex qualitative and quantitative data into a powerful strategic springboard. Your insights will directly influence how a legendary global brand connects with passionate communities, making a lasting impact on their brand and experiential activation strategies.

About the Opportunity

Aquent is proud to partner with an innovative experiential and creative agency that excels at bridging the gap between culture and brand experiences. This short-term, high-impact contract offers the chance to lead the strategic foundation for a major global athletic brand. You will collaborate with global strategy directors and local teams to map out shifts in fandom, code crossover, and community rituals, ensuring the brand sits authentically within the cultural fabric.

How You Will Make an Impact

As the strategic lead for this project, you will own the research methodology and synthesize diverse data streams into a cohesive, compelling narrative. You will collaborate closely with global counterparts to stress-test frameworks, align global perspectives with local nuances, and sharpen strategic territories. Your work will culminate in a beautifully structured, insight-led presentation deck that you will co-present to senior brand stakeholders, directly shaping the future of their experiential campaigns.

Key Responsibilities

• Methodology Design: Build and structure the overarching consumer research methodology across diverse sporting categories, spanning major professional leagues (AFL, NRL, AFLW, NRLW, Soccer) and grassroots communities.
• Landscape & Desktop Discovery: Conduct rapid desk research and cultural listening to track shifts in fandom, code crossover, community rituals, and sportswear brand authenticity.
• Quant Synthesis & Data Analysis: Interrogate incoming quantitative datasets, mining raw figures for consumer attitudes, brand salience, category barriers, and behavioral trends.
• Qualitative Sense-Checking: Conduct targeted qualitative depth interviews to test, validate, and bring human nuance to quantitative findings.
• Global Strategic Collaboration: Partner daily with global Strategy Directors to stress-test frameworks and align international perspectives with local market nuances.
• Deck Craft & Storytelling: Structure and write a compelling, logical, and persuasive strategic story from scratch (with final graphic design handled by the agency’s creative team).
• Client Presentation: Confidently co-present strategic findings and recommendations alongside agency leadership to senior brand stakeholders.

What You Bring to the Table

• Strategic Research & Data Fluency: 5–8+ years of strategy and planning experience within brand, creative, experiential, or insights consultancies.
• Analytical & Narrative Skills: Proven ability to synthesize both quantitative data (turning numbers into human narratives) and qualitative research (moderating interviews, thematic coding, sense-checking).
• Deck Architecture: Exceptional ability to structure a cohesive, logical, and persuasive strategic story from scratch.
• Sporting & Culture Literacy: Nuanced understanding of unique sporting fabrics, tribalism, cultural codes, audience nuances, and differences across major sporting codes (AFL, NRL, AFLW, NRLW, Soccer, and grassroots clubs).
• Client Delivery & Presentation Polish: Proven track record of presenting high-stakes strategy to senior clients with clarity and gravitas.
• Cross-Border Collaboration: Strong collaboration skills, comfortable working asynchronously and closely with global counterparts.