Associate Director, Planning, EMEA

PHD EMEA is looking for an Associate Director of Planning to work on the EMEA business for a large FMCG / CPG company. We’ve recently expanded our remit with the business and restructured our team, leading to this opening. This role will be leading comms planning excellence by bringing together evidence and ideas to create compelling annual media plans, strategic campaign plans, and the planning framework for the media teams to use to develop detailed tactical media plans.

You will work closely with local agency media teams and digital buyers to ensure integrated plans are produced that achieve briefed KPIs. You will be a key contributor as these brands make the case to continue to invest in brand marketing, while ensuring full funnel connections through to eCommerce sites. Your work will be pivotal in leading these brands to think about media in new and different ways – as they look to make an impact using humour and striking media placements in categories where product purchase is on autopilot.

You will speak with our clients on a weekly basis, and work with the creative agency of record; key contacts internally include the strategy director, the digital planning and buying team, local markets as they develop offline channel plans, and our eCommerce specialty division. You’ll help develop other team members by mentoring their strategic and planning skills development. If it wasn’t already obvious, this is a regional planning role where you’ll actually be media planning across 4+ markets. This is a great role for someone from a local media team who wants to learn about media across other markets.

About You:

• Experience in a local media planning or strategy role
• FMCG experience, or an interest in driving brand love, awareness, consideration, and conversion in a category often overlooked
• Several years working with buying and investment teams to ensure the media plan ideas ideated using our planning tools and sold into client can come to life in tactical, detailed media plans ready for execution
• Hands-on experience building and presenting strategic media plans to clients
• A passion for trying new things in media
• The ability to dig into the “whys” behind the answer “no”, whether internally with buying teams or externally with client
• Comfort in talking about the role of different channels and formats in the consumer journey and in achieving communications objectives

About the Agency:

PHD is a growth-focused media agency driven by innovation and creativity. Founded in London in 1990, we were the first media agency to offer strategic and creative planning at a time when the industry was about buying cheaply and quickly. Our founders saw a bright future where smart thinking and clever planning could help brands grow faster than their competitors. Over the many years that have followed, we have continued to build on this defining ethic — with our evolution shaped by a continual investment in thought leadership. And we continue to ensure that our capability and approach evolve in line with changes in media, data, technology, commerce, society, and legislation. Today, with over 100 offices in 74 countries, we continue to create remarkable campaigns that lead to remarkable growth – using the extending canvas of data and technology.