Brand Strategist - F&B, Hospitality & Consumer Brands

Rare Ideas, a leading branding and strategy agency for F&B, hospitality, and retail brands, is seeking a Brand Strategist- F&B, Hospitality & Consumer Brands to join our team. This role is ideal for a creative thinker with strong research, copywriting, and presentation skills, passionate about shaping impactful brand strategies and working in a dynamic, collaborative environment.

Job Location: Pune

Job type: Full time, 5days WFO

To Apply: Email your Resume, Cover Letter & Portfolio (optional) on

Role Objective

Lead brand strategy projects across F&B, hospitality, retail, and consumer categories by decoding businesses, shaping brand architecture, developing positioning, and translating strategy into actionable narratives and creative direction.

What You Will Do

1. Brand Strategy

Build brand architectures, positioning territories, messaging frameworks, and strategic narratives

Develop category insight maps, audience personas, competitor landscapes, and value propositions

Translate founder vision into clear, differentiated strategy documents and creative briefs

1. Creative Direction Support

Guide designers and writers with strategic inputs that ensure brand coherence and depth

Collaborate on campaigns, brand identities, naming, IP creation, and experience design

Review creative output for strategic alignment, not just aesthetic alignment

1. Research & Insight Development

Conduct market, consumer, and cultural research to shape brand direction

Decode F&B and hospitality trends, business models, behavioural insights, and category storytelling

Connect data, intuition, and field observation into actionable brand thinking

1. Client & Project Leadership

Present strategy confidently to founders and leadership teams

Run workshops, discovery sessions, and internal brainstorms

Manage timelines, deliverables, and cross-functional collaboration with editorial, design, and marketing partners

Who You Are

• 23 years of hands-on experience in brand strategy, communication strategy, consulting, or consumer insight roles
• Able to think conceptually and structurally with clarity, curiosity, and business understanding
• Strong writing skills - not as a copywriter, but as a strategic communicator
• Research-driven, detail-focused, and able to create frameworks that guide creative teams
• Comfortable working with founder-led brands and high-velocity environments
• Emotionally intelligent and collaborative, with the ability to lead conversations
• Digitally fluent - understands how brand strategy connects to content, culture, and modern brand-building

Mandatory Requirement

• You DO NOT rely on ChatGPT or AI tools for strategic thinking or final deliverables
• You may use AI only for basic information gathering
• Your thinking, frameworks, articulation, and brand POV must be original

What Youll Love Here

• Working at the intersection of strategy, culture, behaviour, and brand storytelling
• Deep involvement with founder-driven F&B , retail and hospitality ecosystems
• A strategy-first, research-first culture that values clarity over noise
• Freedom to build frameworks, shape narratives, and influence real business outcomes
• A close-knit studio environment where ideas move fast and craft is respected