Mattel

Sr Manager, Creative - Mattel Masterbrand

Mattel$120K — $145K *
Media
Less than 5 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • 5+ years in creative leadership roles, ideally in brand or entertainment sectors.
  • Strong portfolio demonstrating conceptual creative thinking and design sensibilities.
  • Experienced in developing multi-channel brand strategies and visual identities.
  • Ability to collaborate and influence cross-functional teams and executives.
  • Proven track record in managing complex creative projects with clear outcomes.

Responsibilities

  • Define and champion Mattel's creative brand expression at a global scale.
  • Develop breakthrough, idea-driven creative work for diverse audiences.
  • Translate brand strategies into compelling visual narratives and experiences.
  • Lead diverse creative initiatives including campaigns, digital content, and events.
  • Collaborate with various departments to ensure cohesive branding across all platforms.

Benefits

  • Comprehensive benefits package including health and wellness programs.
  • Opportunities for mentorship and professional development.
  • A culture that values diversity and inclusion.
  • Flexible work environment that supports work-life balance.
Full Job Description
Job Description

The Opportunity:

The Mattel Brand Creative team is seeking a Senior Manager, Creative to help shape how Mattel shows up in the world.

As Mattel continues to evolve as a global entertainment company, this role will help build, express, and scale the Mattel Masterbrand across a growing range of consumer, corporate, cultural, and experiential touchpoints.

This is a highly conceptual and hands-on creative leadership role for someone who can think at the brand level and bring ideas to life with exceptional craft. The ideal candidate is equally comfortable developing a big creative idea, building a visual system, directing an agency, designing alongside a team, and presenting work to senior stakeholders.

Working across Mattel's portfolio of iconic brands, this person will help create a cohesive and recognizable Mattel brand presence while finding fresh, culturally relevant ways for the Masterbrand and our brands to come together.

What Your Impact Will Be:
  • Help define, evolve, and champion the creative expression of the Mattel Masterbrand across global touchpoints.
  • Lead the development of breakthrough, idea-led creative that builds awareness, affinity, and recognition for Mattel and strengthens the connection between Mattel and its portfolio of iconic brands.
  • Translate Mattel's brand strategy and positioning into compelling creative ideas, visual storytelling, and brand experiences.
  • Develop and scale Mattel's visual identity system, establishing clear creative principles while continually finding new and unexpected ways for the brand to come to life.
  • Lead creative across a wide range of work including integrated campaigns, social and digital, content, experiential, events, environments, corporate initiatives, partnerships, retail, packaging, and internal brand moments.
  • Create work that can flex across audiences, from kids and families to adult fans, employees, partners, and the broader cultural community.
  • Partner with Mattel's individual brand teams to create moments where the Masterbrand and our portfolio of brands work together in a cohesive and meaningful way.
  • Collaborate closely with Marketing, Communications, Consumer Products, Digital, Design, Content, Events, Workplace, and other cross-functional teams to build a consistent Mattel brand experience.
  • Provide clear, inspiring creative direction to internal creative teams, agencies, freelancers, production partners, and vendors.
  • Be hands on for both design, creative direction and on photoshoots. This role requires on-set production experience.
  • Remain hands-on throughout the creative process, from concept development and design exploration through production and final execution.
  • Identify opportunities to push the Mattel brand into new spaces, formats, partnerships, and cultural moments.
  • Present and advocate for creative work with clarity and confidence to cross-functional partners and senior leadership.
  • Manage multiple high-profile initiatives simultaneously, balancing creative ambition, business objectives, timelines, and budgets.
  • Mentor and develop creative talent while helping foster a culture of curiosity, experimentation, collaboration, and high creative standards.


Qualifications

What We're Looking For:

Skills Required
  • Conceptual creative thinker: Able to translate strategy and consumer insight into simple, powerful creative ideas with the ability to scale across channels.
  • Exceptional design sensibility: Strong command of typography, composition, visual systems, storytelling, art direction, and craft.
  • Brand builder: Understands how to build a distinctive global brand while creating enough flexibility for it to remain fresh, surprising, and culturally relevant.
  • Hands-on creative leader: Comfortable moving between creative direction and making, with the ability to develop ideas visually and guide them through execution.
  • Integrated thinker: Sees the brand experience holistically and understands how an idea can move across campaigns, content, social, digital, environments, experiences, retail, packaging, and emerging touchpoints.
  • Culture-forward: Curious about entertainment, design, fashion, gaming, art, technology, social behavior, and broader culture, with an instinct for how brands can participate authentically.
  • Multi-brand storyteller: Able to work across a portfolio of iconic brands while understanding how each brand's individual equity can connect back to the larger Mattel story.
  • Collaborative leader: Thrives in a highly matrixed organization and builds strong relationships across creative, marketing, design, communications, and business teams.
  • Agency-savvy: Experienced in briefing, directing, challenging, and partnering with agencies and external creative talent to deliver exceptional work.
  • Compelling communicator: Able to articulate the thinking behind creative work, build alignment, and confidently present to senior leadership.
  • Creative problem solver: Comfortable with ambiguity and energized by assignments where the creative opportunity or solution has not yet been defined.

Core Capabilities
  • Masterbrand and corporate brand development
  • Brand identity and visual systems
  • Creative concepting and art direction
  • Integrated campaign development
  • Brand storytelling and narrative development
  • Digital and social creative
  • Experiential, events, and environmental design
  • Content, video, motion, and animation
  • Retail and packaging creative
  • Multi-brand and portfolio storytelling
  • Cultural and partnership activations
  • Agency and production partner management
  • Creative team leadership and mentorship
  • Executive-level presentation and storytelling

*The pay range is indicative of projected hiring range, however base pay will be determined based on a candidate's work location, skills and experience. Mattel offers competitive total pay programs, comprehensive benefits, and resources to help empower a culture where every employee can reach their full potential.

Additional Information

Don't meet every single requirement? At Mattel, we are dedicated to an inclusive workplace and a culture of belonging. If you're excited about this role but your past experience doesn't align perfectly with every qualification in the job description, we still encourage you to apply. You may be just the right candidate for this or other roles. Join Mattel's Talent Community and start receiving exciting updates about our company, our employees, and our culture. Also, interested in signing up for job alerts? Do so here!

How We Work:
We are a purpose driven company aiming to empower generations to explore the wonder of childhood and reach their full potential. We live up to our purpose employing the following behaviors:
  • We collaborate: Being a part of Mattel means being part of one team with shared values and common goals. Every person counts and working closely together always brings better results. Partnership is our process and our collective capabilities is our superpower.
  • We innovate: At Mattel we always aim to find new and better ways to create innovative products and experiences. No matter where you work in the organization, you can always make a difference and have real impact. We welcome new ideas and value new initiatives that challenge conventional thinking.
  • We execute: We are a performance-driven company. We strive for excellence and are focused on pursuing best-in-class outcomes. We believe in accountability and ownership and know that our people are at their best when they are empowered to create and deliver results.

Videos to watch:
The Culture at Mattel
Corporate Philanthropy

Videos To Watch
https://youtu.be/gWyvtJNrMno

About Mattel

Mattel, Inc. is a global toy company that designs, manufactures, and markets a wide range of toys and games. The company's brands include Barbie, Hot Wheels, Fisher-Price, American Girl, and more. Mattel's products are sold in over 150 countries and the company has manufacturing facilities in 10 countries. Mattel is committed to sustainability and has set a goal to achieve 100% recycled, recyclable, or bio-based plastic materials in all products and packaging by 2030. The company is also committed to diversity and inclusion and has been recognized for its efforts in this area.
Learn more about Mattel
Size
36,300 employees
Market Cap
$5.9 billion
Industry
Net Income
$126.6 million
Founded
1945
5 Year Trend
-4.3%
Revenue
$4.5 billion
NASDAQ

Similar Jobs

More Jobs at Mattel

More Media Jobs

Find similar Sr Manager, Creative - Mattel Masterbrand jobs: