About GroupM
GroupM is the world’s largest media investment company and are a part of WPP. In fact, we are responsible for one in every three ads you see globally.
The Role Objective
The Planning Director is primarily responsible for developing consistent, high quality plan recommendations, through a deep understanding of the category & brand challenges. This role will be focused on turning business objectives into communications objectives and defining clear KPIs for measurement, and driving innovation that is founded in clear audience insight.
This is also a leadership role, with a key responsibility for managing client relationships, internal team members & external partner agency relationships.
Responsibilities:
Planning Lead
- Plan, develop, present and lead execution of our full funnel media strategy on multiple channels including TV, OOH and digital
- Maintain strong relationship with key Japan media partners and lead negotiations to get best possible output and value for client
- Manage relationship with partner agencies to deliver a strong, integrated delivery to clients
- Client facing and work closely with other agency teams to establish and achieve specific media goals and objectives
- Provide insight and analysis to the client lead to support the development of data driven strategic recommendations for the client
Client Account Management
- Develop strong relationships with clients, be their go to person for Planning & Operations expertise
- Work with partner agencies to ensure regular reporting that serves the client’s needs.
- Lead on relevant part of client meetings, workshops, partner agency relationships etc.
- Keep clients lead up to date on best practices and industry trends
Operating and Technical Requirements Data oriented, able to interpret reports & insights and recommend clients with the right strategic direction
- Review consumer insight and competitive reports interpretation and key learnings on consumer behavior, relevant category and performance insights
- Knowledgeable on how key digital media platforms work, including programmatic (YT & key social platforms) & DSPs
- Knowledgeable on how offline media works especially Linear TV and OOH
People Management
- Work collaboratively with the business lead to develop the capability, skills and knowledge of our team.
- Mentor and provide direction to team members, challenge the team members to think creatively and break out from the comfort zone
Other Areas
- Demonstrate a business sense and a commercial understanding of profitability.
- Demonstrate an understanding of the media and technology developments that influence clients’ business.
- Be an advocate of continuous improvement, enthusiastic and positive with a “Can Do” attitude Flags up any serious performance issues immediately and seek help to manage them accordingly
Key Performance Indicators:
- Product: outstanding plan execution & operational excellence. KPI – ability to build a solid planning approach and ability to guide planners to the right direction (team feedback)
- Client: satisfaction, retention and growth, contributing to a high score for strategy and activation planning in agency evaluation. KPI – Clients’ agency evaluation
- Commercial: client profitability. KPI - Client Profitability target
- Personal development: positive My360 feedback from manager, peers and clients.
Education, skills and behaviors
- 10+ experience in planning role including at least 3 years of senior role that involves overseeing and guiding planning, managing & training team members
- Fluency in both Japanese and English – Clients and partner agencies are a mixture of English only and Japanese only speakers
- Adaptability and Agility to fast moving & agile nature of the clients’ business - think fast, move fast and be able to connect the dots and see the big picture
- Confidently & comfortably present ideas and strategy
- Proven track record in the relevant sector with category management experience
- Evidence of being able to influence and manage day to day client stakeholders (and senior stakeholders from time to time)
- Strong analytical skills to identify business challenges and recommend strategic direction
- Strong target orientation e.g. very results driven, ability to work effectively to targets
- Strong customer relationship management experience and proven ability in developing key stakeholder relationships
- Evidence of strong collaboration skills used to develop team and client knowledge in order to grow shared understanding and knowledge to facilitate a step-change in strategic planning
- The ability to delegate, up and downwards, to coordinate between groups and departments and to be able to sell strategies, initiatives and ideas convincingly
