Creative Strategy Manager – Creator Content

THE ROLE & THE TEAM

Zalando is evolving into a lifestyle destination, where inspiration and entertainment (I&E) meet commerce. Creators are at the heart of that evolution: through the Zalando Creator Network (ZCN), we build a high-performing community of creators whose content drives engagement, brand affinity, and commercial results across our own platforms and beyond. As Creative Strategist - Creator & Entertainment Content, you set the strategy for creator content, creatively and directionally, across offsite and onsite. You act as the expert counterpart for our in-house creators and external agencies, shaping the strategic vision behind large-scale campaigns, O&O events, partnerships, and brand activations, and translating it into a clear creative direction that leaves room for creators' authentic voice. Your work goes beyond individual campaigns: it builds recognisable creator profiles, establishes repeatable entertainment formats, and turns offsite attention into onsite results - guiding users along the full journey from discovery on social platforms through to inspiration, engagement, and conversion on Zalando This is an individual contributor role for a strategist who thinks like a creative and a creative who thinks in funnels: someone who knows what makes content perform natively on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube, and can connect that instinct to audience needs, data, and business outcomes. Above all, it's a role for someone who sees creator content as seamless storytelling, one narrative that travels with the user across offsite and onsite, from the social feed to Zalando's onsite experiences, rather than separate content for separate channels. While you live and breathe social platforms, this isn't a channel or community management role. Your job is direction: the strategy behind everything our creators make, from the first idea to the impact it has on Zalando's brand and business.

WHAT WE’D LOVE YOU TO DO (AND LOVE DOING)

• 1. Strategic Direction for Creator Content
  Set the strategic and creative direction for creator content across offsite and onsite: define what our creators make, why, and how it ladders up to brand and commercial goals across large-scale campaigns, O&O events, partnerships, and brand activations
  Shape Zalando's onsite creator formats hand in hand with our Product teams - designing the content vision in step with our evolving platform products and strategies, and adapting it in real time as new creator surfaces launch
  Develop recurring content concepts that build creator fame, not just campaign output: series, franchises, and formats where our best creators return as hosts, storytellers, and characters - so audiences come back for the creator, not just the campaign.
  Align cross-functional stakeholders: Creator Management, Social Media Teams, Go-To-Market Marketing, and local market teams and external agencies behind one briefing approach, ensuring business objectives, creative direction, and creator execution stay connected from kickoff to delivery.
  Translate direction into execution through a scalable briefing system: own the standards, templates, and workflows that turn strategy into creator-ready briefs across teams, agencies, and local markets.
  Act as creative sparring partner for internal stakeholders and creators alike, elevating ideas from "post about the campaign" to distinctive, culturally relevant content concepts.
• 2. Content Format Strategy & Development
  Codify our winning content formats (offsite and onsite) into structural creative guidance: moving from case-by-case judgement to repeatable format playbooks that creators can produce at scale, balancing creative distinctiveness, production efficiency, and commercial performance.
  Define how we measure impact across that journey - connecting offsite engagement signals to onsite consideration and conversion and use it to steer where creator content investment goes
  Assess new format opportunities against audience needs, platform trends, and strategic fit, and build clear recommendations on where to invest, test, or stop - fewer, bigger, better applied to our format portfolio.
  Partner with content, live, and social teams to ensure creator content strengthens our overall content portfolio rather than duplicating it.
• 3. Offsite-to-Onsite User Journey Design
  Treat offsite-to-onsite as the operating spine of creator content: map and continuously refine how formats play across the customer journey, from discovery and engagement on social platforms to inspiration, consideration, and conversion on Zalando, with a focus on driving local consideration in our priority markets.
  Identify gaps and hand-off moments in the journey where the right content format can move audiences from watching to shopping, and design content strategies to close them.
  Collaborate with Product, Data & Analytics, and CRM teams to ensure creator content is placed, formatted,