Description:
Job title: Marketing & Place Branding Specialist
Reports to: CEO
Position Overview
Alda Strategic is seeking a Marketing and Place Branding Strategist to join our team. This role blends creative vision, storytelling, design sensibility, and marketing knowledge to shape how places are positioned, perceived, and experienced. Grounded in place branding, this role focuses on developing place brand and identity frameworks and narrative storytelling. Informed by the brand vision, develop marketing and communications collateral that express the unique character of a place. With an understanding of how placemaking and public realm design influence user experience, this role helps position and communicate places in a way that is both site specific, meaningful, and market-relevant.
The ideal candidate understands how to build and activate place brands and communicate across physical, digital, and social touchpoints, while also contributing to broader placemaking and visioning strategies. You’ll collaborate closely with planning strategists, design teams, and developers to ensure every place tells a coherent, compelling story, whether it's a waterfront district, a civic destination, a mixed-use hub, or a large-scale master-planned community.
Responsibilities & Duties
- Lead the creation of place brand strategies including identity frameworks, vision and values, narrative, tone of voice, and naming.
- Develop clear, compelling brand positioning for developments, districts, or public spaces aligned with project goals and target audiences (residents, tenants, visitors).
- Translate research and stakeholder insights into creative direction, storytelling, and brand concepts that shape how places are perceived and communicated.
- Coordinate with internal teams and external consultants to ensure alignment and feasibility of brand execution.
- Contribute to place vision frameworks and placemaking recommendations, linking brand narrative to physical and experiential aspects.
- Conduct site and contextual research to understand audience needs, cultural context, and unique attributes that inform brand identity.
- Prepare and deliver engaging presentations, pitch decks, and final deliverables communicating place positioning and creative ideas clearly.
Key Skills & Competencies
- Proven expertise in marketing and place branding within real estate, urban development, or placemaking contexts.
- Experience and strong understanding of all aspects of 360 marketing campaigns including digital and OOH advertising.
- Strong ability to develop and articulate compelling place identities through strategy, narrative, and visual storytelling.
- Strong graphic design skills with the ability to create visual assets across print and digital platforms, demonstrating proficiency in layout and brand integration.
- Deep understanding of brand principles, tone of voice, messaging platforms, and the integration of verbal and visual identity.
- Experience transforming strategic insights into brand frameworks and marketing tools that differentiate places and engage target audiences.
- Skilled in content creation for branding and marketing materials (presentations, websites, social media).
- Excellent writing and editing skills, adaptable to diverse audiences and platforms.
- Familiarity with urban design and public space fundamentals, able to align brands with physical environments and user experience goals.
- Proficient in Google Suite (Slides, Docs), Canva, and Adobe Creative Suite (InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop).
- Collaborative mindset with experience working across branding, design, planning, and marketing, communications and advertising teams.
- Strong organizational skills balancing creative innovation with detail-oriented delivery in fast-paced projects.
Qualifications & Experience
- Degree in marketing, branding, communications, or a related field.
- Marketing experience working within urban planning, placemaking, architecture, landscape architecture, or related disciplines is a plus.
- 3-5 years’ experience in place branding, marketing, public realm design, or strategic urban consulting.
- Demonstrated experience creating place brand guides, narratives, tone of voice, and marketing collateral. Exposure to development positioning, naming, or identity work for places or districts preferred.
- Proven ability to collaborate with multidisciplinary teams aligning spatial strategies with market positioning and brand narratives.
Cultural & Organizational Fit
- Self-motivated, resourceful, and able to work independently or collaboratively.
- Comfortable in a fast-paced, evolving consultancy environment.
- Passionate about cities, urban development, and people-first approaches to the design of the public realm.
- Open to iterative processes, feedback, and cross-disciplinary collaboration.