PLACED: Media Director, Communications Planning; $195-250K, NYC

Ready to join an independent, full-service advertising and media agency with a mission to change the way the world feels about advertising?

The convergence of media and creative is accelerating, and clients are looking to this agency more and more for media guidance. This is an opportunity to provide real value to client partners, improve the ad experience for people on the other end of communications and fill a need that is being sorely underserved by incumbents.

The agency’s ability to make ads that people notice and love has translated into exceptional business results for clients across industry verticals. Over the last 3+ years, they have made the investment in building out media planning and buying capabilities. Last year, top line revenue grew over 200%; 80% of new business consolidated their media with the agency, and these were annual retainers, not projects. Now, the next step is to scale this offering; they have a media team who are very good at what they do, and now need a new department leader.

The Media Communications Director will be the strategic architect of campaigns and create a steady heartbeat of what media should be. Media sits at the intersection of ideas and activation, so it will be important that this person has a creative spirit and an analytical mind, someone who can contextualize an idea within the appropriate channels and ultimately ensure that creative execution and media all work in perfect harmony.

The process here is iterative – working hand-in-hand with account teams, creatives, producers and brand strategists to make world-class work happen, whatever it takes. You’ll be involved from idea inception, through to final implementation and beyond. You’ll help the agency in understanding how to take what they make and connect it with people; whether it be teenagers buying cereal, assistants booking private jets for their demanding boss, or middle aged guys buying supplements to help support their aching muscles. You’ll need to be able to bring comms planning alive for the agency, and show how media can be used creatively to give ideas an extra dimension. You’ll need to challenge and inspire the creative teams day in, day out, and encourage them to think differently about how channels can work to enhance what they’re producing. This is a high profile and vital role which sits at the very core of what they’re striving to achieve as an agency.

What you’ll DO:

• Lead day-to-day comms planning for high-profile, award winning accounts; play a key role in building trusted relationships with clients alongside other co-workers
• Lead media team to develop, activate, steward and reconcile all media recommendations
• Partner closely with Account, Strategy and Creative leads to ensure creative ideas make most effective use of an integrated mix of owned, earned and paid channels, and are deployed via innovative, targeted media and tech
• Partner closely with the clients’ owned channel teams to ensure that the communication idea is adopted and executed seamlessly throughout social, PR, and digital/social/mobile properties
• Partner closely with media agency partners on key accounts to ensure that ideas are deployed through the proper mix of paid/owned/earned channels
• Partner with account teams to develop consumer journeys for each campaign or activity
• Determine the communications tasks for each campaign and write task briefs that guide messaging and execution tailored for each channel
• Create measurable campaign KPI’s, helping to enhance creative effectiveness and improve sell rate of innovative ideas
• Read and analyze campaign metrics and leverage insights from data to improve comms effectiveness
• Responsible for demonstrating an understanding of consumer behaviors within media, and a working knowledge of media relevant to the client’s business including TV, digital, social, experiential, print, OOH, and search
• Showcase an understanding of digital, social and emerging platforms and technologies, specifically programmatic
• Lead comms planning in new business pitches

What YOU offer:

• 15+ years of experience in comms planning and/or media planning roles; expertise in developing digital, social and experiential marketing plans
• Proven experience leading an account and building strong relationships with senior client leadership; must show record of ability to effectively drive agency agenda of great work
• Experience managing and mentoring individuals with backgrounds in a variety of skill sets
• Experience of integrated advertising campaigns across multiple media channels and the ability to demonstrate its impact on the brand
• Entrepreneurial nature; interest in helping to develop and implement new department process
• Superior professionalism with strong persuasion skills that allow for selling of ideas and strategies to prospective and existing clients
• Strong interpersonal, verbal and written skills as well as proven ability to develop well written documents and eloquently present
• Ambitious, curious, and collaborative personality who is open to helping with any task
• Hands on experience with technology platforms (Google, DSP, DCM, Social) is beneficial

• Be nice

Sounds great? Please shoot your resume to hunter@thehuntinglodgenyc.com. Not for you? Share with your network and get someone working!