Associate Director, Planning

The Associate Media Director of Planning role is a leadership role as well as a managerial one. The Associate Media Director sets the working style for the group, leads the strategic direction and is tasked with being a marketing partner for the clients. The expectation of the Associate Media Director is to be an expert on the clients’ business and a leader on the day-to-day client business and within the agency.

The Associate Media Director is responsible for demonstrating a strong working knowledge of the media space, for both digital and traditional channels, and available media research. This individual is responsible for identifying business opportunities and solutions on a regular basis. The Associate Media Director sets the tone for how the account is managed by assuring focus on key client objectives and delivering appropriate resources while maintaining profitability. A strong passion for seeing media plans come to life with flawless execution is a must.

Experience in CPG from a traditional media agency is a plus, as is prior experience executing DCO/personalization campaigns. This role partners with the Group Director of Planning, who oversees the client-agency relationship for both media and creative for the account.

Media Planning and Execution:

• Accountable for media plan output timeliness, accuracy, and overall excellence
• Demonstrate ability to utilize resources (syndicated, proprietary, analyst data) to help guide client’s marketing goals and apply to strategic recommendations
• Work closely with activation department leads (programmatic, social, search, retail search, and shopper) to outline appropriate processes and timelines to ensure flawless execution
• Comfortable utilizing data for storytelling and familiar with general media analytics and MMM models
• Understand and adopt new techniques and technologies that are relevant for clients’ media strategies
• Maintain relationships with media community; continue to develop publisher and higher relationships for exchange of ideas, with a keen eye for minority owned and operated media publishers
• Ideally possesses working knowledge of dynamic/personalization campaigns and multicultural planning and strategy (specifically for Hispanic audience)

Client & Internal/External Relationships:

• Be the central point of contact across investment, strategy, analytics, and creative teams
• Build & maintain trusting, collaborative relationships with clients at appropriate levels
• Manage expectations of clients and deliverables
• Accurately represent the client’s point of view when reviewing work, leverage this perspective when providing feedback to team and presenting to client
• Identify opportunities to offer other agency service line offerings to existing clients
• Grow business opportunities within current clients, where appropriate
• Capable of effectively managing up and down the reporting structure
• Comfortable managing and working with large and complex teams – directly and indirectly with junior talent as well as cross-discipline and cross agency

 Strategic Thinking & Leadership:

• Deep expertise interpreting consumer data and insights and applying them to create unique, audience-first communications and connections plans
• Provide and/or guide strategic input for all plans internally and externally
• Provide and discuss industry information on media, markets and related dynamics
• Demonstrate problem solving and intervention when necessary
• Understand and analyze the root causes of problems and develop ways to rectify
• Guide and assist staff to arrive at potential solutions to problems/issues
• Ensure key information is provided to team regarding client issues, internal agency issues, changes in account status, etc.
• Train, motivate and develop a media planning group
• Construct and deliver accurate, honest and timely performance management documents

• Bachelor’s Degree
• 7+ years of communications/integrated media planning experience
• Ideal candidate has experience in at least 2 out of 3 in the following: DCO/personalization campaigns, direct IO campaign management, and communication plan development for Hispanic Audiences
• In depth client service experience
• Experience in developing & executing tactical campaigns (several, fast turn retail) for both traditional & digital channels
• Understanding of key research sources
• Proven leadership ability – experience managing a team of planners & supervisors
• Knowledge of current trends and innovations in media and culture
• High-level proficiency in PowerPoint, Excel, Word and Outlook
• Working knowledge of Insights tools such as MRI and Simmons and competitive tools like Nielsen Ad Intel and/or Kantar Stradegy
• Experience with MediaTools and buying platforms such as DDS, MediaOcean, HudsonMX
• Solid understanding of DCM, and other digital media related tools (comScore, eMarketer, Forrester…)

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Employees from diverse or underrepresented backgrounds encouraged to apply.
Dentsu (the "Company") is committed to a policy of Equal Employment Opportunity and will not discriminate against an applicant or employee of the Company, on the basis of age, sex, sexual orientation, race, color, creed, religion, ethnicity, national origin, alienage or citizenship, disability, marital status, veteran or military status, genetic information, or any other legally-recognized protected basis under federal, state or local laws, regulations or ordinances. Applicants with disabilities may be entitled to reasonable accommodation under the terms of the Americans with Disabilities Act and/or certain state or local laws. A reasonable accommodation is a change in the way things are normally done that will ensure an equal employment opportunity without imposing an undue hardship on the Company. Please contact [email protected] if you need assistance completing any forms or to otherwise participate in the application process or to request or discuss an accommodation in connection with a job at the Company to which you are applying.

About dentsu
Dentsu is an integrated growth and transformation partner to the world’s leading organizations. Founded in 1901 in Tokyo, Japan, and now present in more than 110 markets, it has a proven track record of nurturing and developing innovations, combining the talents of its global network of leadership brands to develop impactful and integrated growth solutions for clients. Dentsu delivers end-to-end experience transformation (EX) by integrating its services across Media, CXM and Creative, while its business transformation (BX) mindset pushes the boundaries of transformation and sustainable growth for brands, people and society.

Dentsu, Innovating to Impact.

Find out more:
https://www.dentsu.com/
https://www.group.dentsu.com/en/

We are champions for meaningful progress and we strive to be a force for good—for our people, for our clients, for the industry and for our society. We keep our people at the center, creating space for growth, understanding and learning so they can thrive. We embed diversity, in our mindset, in our solutions and in our teams to empower an inclusive, equitable and culturally fluent environment. Building this culture within our teams makes us better collaborators with each other and with our clients, driving better outcomes for all.

Dentsu (the "Company") is committed to a policy of Equal Employment Opportunity and will not discriminate against an applicant or employee of the Company, on the basis of age, sex, sexual orientation, race, color, creed, religion, ethnicity, national origin, alienage or citizenship, disability, marital status, veteran or military status, genetic information, or any other legally-recognized protected basis under federal, state or local laws, regulations or ordinances. Applicants with disabilities may be entitled to reasonable accommodation under the terms of the Americans with Disabilities Act and/or certain state or local laws. A reasonable accommodation is a change in the way things are normally done that will ensure an equal employment opportunity without imposing an undue hardship on the Company. Please contact your recruiter if you need assistance completing any forms or to otherwise participate in the application process or to request or discuss an accommodation in connection with a job at the Company to which you are applying.