amber Day Justis

My name is Amber Day Justis. I'm a west coast-based ECD/Head of Creative with 20 years of experience leading creative development on everything from Barbie to bubbly. Facebook to Fintech. I am foundationally trained with a masters in art direction and design. After 2 decades of experience I’ve become a true hybrid with deep knowledge of writing, new business development, managing a complex P&L, AI/AR/VR, social media strategy and social-first, break-through thinking in my creative and production approach. As a Head of Creative I have built, recruited and managed both creative and production departments ranging from teams of 40 to 400. Empathy, honesty and a sense of joy are the foundation of my approach - in both my work and in my management style. I believe that listening and intuiting the needs of my clients, teams, and collaborators are my greatest strengths. These tenants have made is possible to maintain and grow hope among my collaborators at all levels at a time where we are redefining every aspect of how we work. I'm evangelical in my commitment to getting the most compelling work made well, seen by many, and ultimately achieving key KPIs for the brands I touch and the partners I am invested in supporting.

The majority of my career has been spent at global agencies working on a broad range of blue-chip brands. I also spent time leading several well-regarded boutique agencies where I developed a scrappier, budget-stretching approach to break-through, disruptive thinking for challenger brands with big dreams and smaller spends.

My visual communication style is strong, vibrant, and inherently sharable. I also specialize in simplifying and humanizing complex technologies. As a digital native, I collaborate with brand strategists to develop a clear PR/social objective and media strategy at the onset of any project. I believe that the best advertising solutions come from knowing exactly what you want the outcome to be and then swinging hard to reach those objectives. I truly love data. It makes setting big, targeted goals very clear.

I have had the good fortune of working with some of the industry's greatest creative leaders, the best brands, smartest clients and truly some of the most generous mentors in the world. I count myself as incredibly lucky. While I have been recognized by award shows, my most proud moments have been watching a piece of work get loved and shared by millions of people who don't care much about industry accolades.

I can lead an agency, lead a new business pitch or work as an independent art director and writer. I'm at home in an agency environment with extensive experience leading multi-agency collaborations such as brandside creative teams, retail partners, media strategists, and tactical channel planners. I’m also a seasoned creative strategist with extensive platform experience in tech and immersive experiential. I’ve been ECD brandside at one of the largest privately owned CPG companies in the world overseeing creative on 65+ SKUs and I've spent years building many in-house agencies from the inside out, recruiting and growing teams of creatives and producers from scratch. I’ve also acted as a freelance consultant on many successful new business efforts. I enjoy early, upstream strategic thinking down to crafting the most beautiful executions. Each stage of the process is an essential part of getting to the best ideas. My goal is simple: to make great work with great people. 

I believe advertising is like playing catch with the world. It always works best when they throw the ball back to you. Thank you for spending time with my work and please reach out if I can be of help to you.