Job Description

Associate Director, Media Planning

The Associate Director, Media Planning is responsible for developing an understanding of clients' business model and pain points and translating them to custom media strategies. The ideal candidate will have a passion for digital marketing, have an in-depth understanding of all media channels, both online and offline, as well as the ability to think critically. The Associate Director, Media Planning will be responsible for working on both existing client strategy as well as collaborate on and in some cases, lead, new client strategy opportunities. The successful Associate Director, Media Planning strategically develops media plans that deliver against goals / KPIs and provides ongoing guidance for next-level strategies that lead to significant impact for the client's business. The Associate Director also leads a team of planners and managers to support the growth, development and changing needs of the client business in light of a continuously evolving media landscape. The Associate Director fosters a positive and productive team culture, and forms the strong collaborative relationships, internally and externally, that steadily elevate the quality of thinking and ideas applied to each client's business. The Associate Director creates an environment that promotes personal and professional growth for team members and encourages loyalty, openness of opinion and constant curiosity

Location, NY, Chicago or Minneapolis offices, 4 days a week

Key Responsibilities:

• Work with Media Planning leadership to develop innovative and custom solutions in achieving client goals for prospective and current clients
• Work in collaboration with strategy, comms planning and creative teams to define media strategies that are integrated across moments / tactics and align with client campaign objectives
• Oversee media strategy, campaign creation, budget, optimization, and testing strategy(ies), as applicable, for full-funnel, multi-platform campaigns across all paid channels including television, radio, print, out-of-home, digital, social, and mobile media
• Leverage insights, learnings, and modeling to help determine the right channel mix and further bolster the data-informed portions of media plans
• Stay current with new advances in media, the competitive landscape, and vendor capabilities; leverage that knowledge to influence current and future business plans and strategies
• Drive media innovation, thought leadership, and best practice sharing throughout the department
• Participate in developing / nurturing relationships with media partners and technology companies to enable first-mover access, most competitive rates, and development of innovative programs
• Identify and lead prioritization of media projects to effectively manage workflow across assigned client portfolio
• Establish and share media best practices and benchmarks across teams; highlight opportunities to test, learn and optimize/evolve based on knowledge of customer insights, competitive media initiatives, new channels, and/or offerings by channel
• Assist or lead in the preparation and presentation of new business pitches as requested by supervisor
• Represent the agency's mission, capabilities and goals accurately to assigned clients, business development prospects and other potential industry allies (i.e. vendors, peers, etc.)
• Review all marketing strategies/research for assigned clients as a "quality control" function
• Understand each client's market, their challenges / opportunities and their competition
• Think strategically and tactically to meet client needs, to improve current services or to deliver new services
• Maintain contact with key industry associations and organizations
• Perform other responsibilities, as they are developed/defined

Job Requirements:

Education: Bachelor's degree required

Experience:

• 7+ years of media experience at both a tactical level (implementing) and strategic level (guiding and training); agency experience is a plus
• 3+ years in a management or supervisory role
• Exceptionally strong verbal and written communication skills to effectively interact with clients, vendors and all levels of the internal organization
• Ability to identify / recruit / retain top talent; experience positively managing personnel issues
• Proven quantitative and analytic capabilities; expertise in translating data into insights
• Proven ability to manage multiple, simultaneous short- and long-term projects
• Track record of demonstrating strong judgment and prioritization capabilities
• Ability to implement change quickly to support evolving / changing client initiatives or marketplace occurrences
• Working knowledge of third-party media research, including but not limited to: Nielsen, MRI, Scarborough, Media Radar, DoubleClick, YouGov

Knowledge, Skills & Abilities:

• Experience building client decks and pitching current as well as potential up-sell opportunities
• Expert understanding of media planning, distribution, and syndication of content
• Collaborative approach and all-in attitude
• Client facing track record
• Skilled at and enjoys manipulating and understanding data, as well as drawing actionable data-driven decisions to drive sales and marketing efforts
• Strong interpersonal, partnership and influencing management skills
• Self-motivated and creative strategic thinker who thrives in fast-paced environment
• Extensive knowledge of the media industry, demonstrating depth in media strategy and performance-based marketing across all channels, media analytics / ROI, and planning and buying local and national media (digital and traditional)
• Proven ability to develop and manage paid media plans that meet / exceed business objectives
• Influential and persuasive communicator with strong interpersonal skills; exceptional ability to grow and foster internal / external relationships
• Strong presentation / story-telling and impeccable written and verbal communication skills
• Demonstrated ability to learn and understand each client's business; act as an extension of the client with working knowledge of issues that could influence media decisions
• Display a natural curiosity as a "student of the industry" with a desire to both learn and teach, while applying knowledge for the ongoing betterment of client media plans
• Ability to lead and develop a high-performing team, with track record of employee growth and development
• Passion for a purpose-driven, team oriented, client-first, cross-functional culture
• Demonstrated problem-solver with the ability to provide creative solutions that result in positive outcomes
• Ability to articulate a clear and compelling vision to direct and maximize the team where all roles and responsibilities are well defined, understood and managed
• Expert synthesizer of detail and information for client, peer and management consumption
• Exhibits sound business judgment to navigate through everyday client and team challenges, commanding both authority and respect

Employees can be expected to be paid an annualized salary range of $97,000-$125,000, based on variations in knowledge, skills, experience and market conditions.

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