Marketing Associate (Contract)

We're hiring our first Marketing Associate: a bold, creative, outside-the-box thinker who's sharpened their instincts at consumer brands people love to talk about. You know what makes a hook land, a stunt spread and a comment section light up, and you're excited to bring that energy somewhere new. We're looking for someone who is immediately available for a full-time, 6-month contract and can work in-person in our SF office in the Mission 3 days/week.

Ello is an AI reading and math teacher for kids, and we believe learning deserves marketing that's as fun as it is meaningful. We want our work to be funny, surprising and genuinely shareable while earning trust with families and empowering the parent. You'll help us make that happen.

You'll be the connective tissue across our organic and paid creative pipelines and Ello's day-to-day point of contact for our roster of creators (UGC, organic and paid), keeping the production line moving: sourcing, briefing, script approvals, scheduling and follow-through. Beyond creator ops, you'll plug in wherever the team needs you as we scale toward launch: pulling reporting, uploading content, setting up ad campaigns, supporting events, and making sensible day-to-day calls so senior folks aren't drowning in coordination work.

This is an entry-level seat with an unusual amount of surface area. The right person is hungry, organized enough to own the coordination work, and creative enough to be more than an executor. You'll partner closely with our Creative Strategy Lead (Sanna Nour), Growth Marketing Lead (Cole Nielsen), and the broader marketing team.

• Own day-to-day management of our creative contractor pipelines for organic and paid: sourcing creators, pitching them on Ello, negotiating rates within set budgets, and onboarding them to our process.

• Be the primary point of contact for creators: brief them, review and confirm scripts against our guidelines, route feedback from internal stakeholders, and keep production timelines on track.

• Maintain a clean, up-to-date roster of active creators, scripts in flight and content delivered, so the team always knows what's shipping when.

• Generate organic content ideas grounded in our brand direction and what's resonating culturally. Bring fresh concepts weekly.

• Pitch and help bring to life marketing stunts and IRL moments, from scrappy street activations to bigger cultural plays, that give us something worth posting about.

• Spot trends, sounds and formats early, and move fast to get Ello in on them in a way that feels native, not forced.

• Stay close to comments, DMs, and community feedback, and surface insights that should shape what we make next.

• Pull weekly and ad-hoc reporting across organic and paid channels. Flag what's working, what's not, and what's worth digging into.

• Upload and schedule content across our organic channels (TikTok, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube). Set up and traffic ad creative under our Growth Marketing Lead's direction.

• Make the small day-to-day calls that keep marketing moving: which thumbnail, which caption variant, when to repost, who to loop in.

• Partner with the team on quarterly organic social planning, bringing a data-driven, in-the-weeds perspective on what's actually performing.

• Help shape testing roadmaps for new formats (animation, UGC, longer-form and more).

• Build a point of view on our organic channels over time and contribute to the team's strategic thinking, not just execution.

• Support stunts and events end to end: concepting, logistics, permits and vendors, RSVPs, partner coordination and on-the-ground help, plus capturing content on the day so every activation turns into organic posts.

• Track what each stunt or activation drove (reach, engagement, sign-ups) and share learnings so the next one lands better.

• 2–4 years of relevant marketing experience: internships, contractor work, agency time, or running social for a brand (or yourself, if it's strong).

• Demonstrated taste for organic social. You live on TikTok and Instagram, can explain why a hook works, and your reference points come from consumer culture, not our category. You can spot a trend early and act on it fast, before the moment passes.

• Strong people skills and follow-through. You can hold a creator's hand through a brief, chase down a missing deliverable without being annoying, and make people want to work with you.

• Resourceful and scrappy. You'd rather figure it out and move than wait for instructions.

• Already using AI tools (Claude, ChatGPT, etc.) daily for research, briefs, copy drafts, summarizing comments, whatever speeds you up. You treat AI as a force multiplier, not a novelty.

• Comfortable being in our SF office 3 days a week and working alongside a small, fast-moving team. Energy and hustle matter here.

• Experience at a consumer brand with a distinct voice (DTC, food and bev, beauty, apps, entertainment). You know how a brand earns attention in a feed, not just how it describes itself.

• A mischievous streak. You're not afraid of well-done clickbait, and you know the difference between a bold idea that earns a parent's trust and a cheap one that spends it.

• Hands-on experience running creator or UGC pipelines at an agency, brand, or as a contractor.

• Experience writing short-form copy or scripts. You can draft a hook, caption or brief without much hand-holding.

• A creator portfolio of your own, even a small one, that shows you understand the platform from the inside.

• Experience planning or executing guerrilla marketing, pop-ups or stunts, especially ones that went viral or earned press.

• Familiarity with Notion, Slack, and Figma, or you're a quick study.

• Have a bias toward action and would rather ship something imperfect than wait for perfect.

• Are curious and want to learn fast across multiple marketing disciplines.

• Take full ownership of their work and follow through without being chased.

• Prefer direct, honest communication grounded in empathy.

• Want to bring outside-the-category thinking to something that matters: kids learning to read and do math.

• Bring real hustle to a startup environment and want to be part of a tight, in-office team.

At Ello, diversity is a moral imperative and a competitive advantage. We do not discriminate based on race, religion, skin color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status. We plan and structure our interviews to assess skills and experience directly. If you need accommodations throughout the interview process, please contact [email protected].