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Title: Media Planning Associate Director | YouTube

Discipline: Media Planning

EssenceMediacom

EssenceMediacom fuses Essence’s performance, data, analytics and creative technology DNA with MediaCom’s scaled multichannel audience planning and strategic media expertise.

EssenceMediacomX

EssenceMediacomX sits within the legacy Essence building on Oxford Street. We still have all our wonderful essentials looking after our amazing clients! Our clients include many exciting brands such as Google, ITV, Airbnb, BT/EE, NBCUniversal and L’Oréal to name a few.

Media Futures Group - A little about us:

Google has consolidated its media agency partnership into WPP’s GroupM, building on the world class digital work that Essence (now EMX) has delivered for Google for over 17 years. Media Futures Group (MFG) is a bespoke team that delivers on our commitment to Google for a more strategic, creative and integrated media approach established to drive better business results.

The MFG team is made up of best in class digital, offline, and integrated media experts who work together to enhance media’s contribution to Google’s business. MFG is powered by EMX, EssenceMediacom, and other constituent parts of GroupM around the world. The MFG team operates in a seamlessly integrated way across strategy, planning, investment, creative, analytics and data. The profile of people who work in MFG are world class, committed to establishing a new high water mark in the media industry.

The convergence of expertise and excellence makes MFG the most progressive and exciting team in advertising and media, globally. The characteristics of successful MFG team members are that they are highly collaborative, intellectually curious and constantly reach for excellence.

MFG is committed to the growth of our people as a means to unleash the potential of Google’s business. We are invested in whole-person wellbeing, values and behaviors that reflect our mission and purpose, and providing the tools and systems needed to do the best work of your career. We are constantly challenging ourselves to find new ways to deliver on those commitments through our community groups, mental health allyship, and a work environment that is conducive to our teams feeling included and supported. This is a team empowered by limitless possibilities.

Joining MFG as an EssenceMediacomX employee, you will be part of a data-driven global agency that blends data science, objective media and captivating experiences to build valuable connections between brands and consumers. In addition to Google, EMEA based clients include BT and NBCUniversal. The agency is more than 2,000 people strong, manages over $3B in media spend and deploys campaigns in 71 markets via its global offices throughout North America, EMEA and APAC.

About the team

Media Planning are experts on the paid media landscape and how consumers interact with it. We architect and steward holistic media plans throughout their lifecycle, owning the creation of overall plans, cross-channel budget allocation, in flight cross-channel optimisation & reporting and post-campaign analysis. We are our clients’ key contacts for a unified view across all aspects of their campaigns, narrating the story of the campaign from planning recommendation through to PCA.

About the role

The Media Planning Associate Director sits within a team of media planners with at least one direct report, working closely with regional counterparts to oversee performance marketing for YouTube within EMEA. The role will include: Strategic thinking, weekly reporting reviews and campaign QBRs. They will work with the team to ensure communication to the client is clear, compelling and of a high standard. The candidate will hold close client relationships and work alongside the Media Planning Director(s) as the primary face of Essence’s acquisition team for those clients. They will be ultimately responsible for campaign performance and the delivery of business-enhancing innovation. They will foster strong external relationships and keep a close eye on the market to ensure new opportunities and research are reviewed and implemented for the benefit of their clients.

Some of the things we'd like you to do:

• Oversee and quality assure all deliverables related to YouTube.
• Ensure the delivery of high quality strategic presentations, actionable weekly reporting, insightful post campaign analysis and clear briefs to Activation.
• Deliver clear and compelling rationale to support media investment recommendations and to evidence campaign performance versus expected outcomes.
• Take a lead role in client presentations and in briefing to Activation.
• Work with Activation and Analytics to design the test and learn framework for assigned campaigns.
• Take responsibility for the performance of assigned media budgets against intended outcomes.
• Be a point of escalation for team issues (within and outside the team).
• Contribute to internal thought leadership and team process/workflow enhancement, increasing work quality, making us more efficient, and increasing Essential satisfaction.
• Set the quality standard for one or more planning deliverables per year, improving them over time via team/client feedback and incorporation of evolving external context.
• When appropriate, support the development of media plans and presentations for new business pitches.
• Identify and build out one case study per quarter suitable for internal sharing.
• Line manage 1-2 direct reports

A bit about yourself:

• Forecast expected outcomes of brand and performance campaigns and manage spend and finance reconciliations accordingly.
• Basic spreadsheet capability (VLOOKUP, Pivot Table) are a must, advanced skills strongly preferred.
• Superior presentation design skills, in slides or document format.
• Thorough understanding of industry standard media research tools (Comscore, GWI, TGI, YouGov).
• Strong written and verbal communication skills.
• Excellent organisational skills, close attention to detail and ability to quality control work.
• Ability to adhere to deadlines and project manage multiple campaigns.
• Superb client relationship and management skills.
• Development and maintenance of productive relationships with vendor partners.
• Proven problem solving and decision making skills.
• Ability to work independently and to collaborate in a team environment.
• Skilled in quantitative reasoning.

Management Responsibility

• Motivate a team, leading by example while coaching juniors.
• Provide timely and actionable feedback to aid in team development and improvement.
• Monitor and support Essential satisfaction across client teams, identifying and implementing ways to maintain or increase satisfaction.
• Foster strong working relationships across the client team to facilitate flawless execution of plans.
• Communicate effectively across all levels of the team.
• Understand when to escalate issues to managers.
• Calculate the workload implication of new campaigns and feed in to resource management.
• Provide awareness and recognition for jobs well done.

Required Education and Experience:

• Proven experience in media at Senior Manager level, a solid understanding of the principles of marketing and advertising, media concepts and terms.