Digital Activation Director

A global media agency delivering connected, emotionally intelligent media through a proactive, boutique service for international clients. We are on a mission to turn change into competitive advantage for our clients—moving beyond superficial data to unlock the power of emotional connection. As agents of change, we help brands harness shifts in culture, technology, media and consumer behaviour to drive growth beyond borders.

Our clients receive a high‑touch partnership that integrates the best of Omnicom’s reach, breadth and capability—making it easier, better and faster for brands to grow internationally. We identify growth audiences, orchestrate integrated media experiences and create predictable value worldwide. Powered by Omnicom, our ‘Heart & Science’ approach across audience creation, experience planning, digital, data, partnerships and operations delivers synchronized, value‑creating activation centrally and in collaboration with our local network.

This role provides leadership across the full digital activation remit, giving you oversight of digital channel performance, platform excellence and market alignment across EMEA for ON Running. You will lead the day‑to‑day delivery, optimisation and governance of Hearts & Science’s Digital Activation across EMEA via our Hub in London to ensure consistency, quality and delivery of a unified digital activation strategy. As an agent of change, you will bring technical depth, curiosity and collaborative leadership to the client, network and agency team. You will turn complex digital activation signals into clear strategic direction, platform data into actionable optimisation plans and brand ambition into digital activation‑driven growth.

Responsibilities:

• Lead digital activation across EMEA, ensuring campaigns are set up, executed and optimised to best‑in‑class standards across paid search, social & programmatic, overseeing a team of specialists.
• Ownership of end‑to‑end process translating briefs into live campaigns in‑platform.
• Ownership of budget planning and pacing, PO management and all related finance tasks to ensure a successful campaign.
• Establish and enforce a unified digital activation approach, ensuring consistent structures, optimisation frameworks and quality controls.
• Drive end‑to‑end process from planning to set‑up, working closely with performance, data & ad operations teams to ensure flawless execution.
• Maintain a strong performance rhythm—overseeing daily digital activation analysis, insight generation and optimisation plans with market and specialist teams.
• Govern shared digital activation dashboards and ensure data accuracy, insight quality and accountability across all contributing markets.
• Own and rollout the best‑in‑class QA approach across set‑up, budget management and pacing.

Digital Activation Program Leadership:

• Lead the international digital activation program for ON Running, ensuring clarity of expectations, global standards and measurable uplift in efficiency and growth.
• Act as the primary digital activation lead for senior client stakeholders, providing confident guidance on platform strategy and performance actions.
• Translate multi‑market digital activation data into strategic recommendations and ensure consistent global activation of learnings.
• Develop digital activation reporting standards and oversee the creation of high‑quality evaluations, case studies and performance narratives.

Digital Activation Planning & Governance:

• Consolidate specialist digital activation inputs into a unified strategic response for briefs and cross‑channel alignment.
• Guide the regional digital activation planning process, ensuring budgets, taxonomy, forecasts and KPI frameworks follow central guidance.
• Ensure digital channel optimisations and recommendations are fully integrated with wider digital channels.
• Oversee digital activation workflow and alignment using shared project management tools for seamless cross‑market coordination.

Client Experience:

• Act as a primary point of contact for the client across digital activation planning, optimisation & innovation.
• Drive forward business continuity via client‑aligned quarterly priorities, QBRs & status meetings.
• Work with the client on the roadmap for digital activation maturity.
• Lead the cadence and creation of client‑facing digital activation case studies & opportunity showcases.

Team Management:

• Direct line management of one digital activation manager and offshore teams, setting a learning & development path, objectives and offering ongoing support.
• Manage team workload across the digital activation program, prioritising as needed.

Skills / Experience:

• History of driving success in digital activation advertising.
• Hands‑on leadership experience of digital activation teams.
• Demonstrate experience leading and defining client’s digital activation strategy.
• Broad knowledge of digital channels, specialist activation experience in at least one channel.
• Understand the requirements for delivering highest quality campaign/data insights & learnings.
• Able to set up and govern end‑to‑end planning, optimisation, budget & QA processes.
• Able to translate strategy and planning outputs into a coherent digital activation approach.
• Highly skilled at analysing data and surfacing actionable insights.
• Relentless curiosity to look for opportunities to improve performance in reporting and performance dashboards.
• Ability to consolidate specialist input into one performance narrative.
• Always pursuing new ways of bettering campaigns and improving performance reporting.
• Confident managing, supporting and educating other members of a team, including senior stakeholders, junior reports and wider agency members.
• Drives change to deliver results and holds executional teams accountable to output, optimisations and consistency.
• Up‑to‑date knowledge of the ad tech landscape.
• Experienced in an agency environment or e‑commerce client‑side function.
• International experience preferred, international outlook essential.

Reporting: Reports to Agency Partner, Digital (EMEA).

Residence: Omnicom, Bankside 2, Southwark Street, London, with flexibility as required for EMEA collaboration.

Flexible Working: At Omnicom Media Group, we are committed to supporting flexibility for our people while fostering collaboration, innovation, and teamwork. We have a hybrid working model (three days in the office, two working remotely), to ensure that we meet the needs of both our people and our business, balancing the benefits of in‑person connections with the flexibility of remote working.

Our standard working hours are 9:30 – 17:30, but we offer the ability to flex around core hours of 10:30 – 16:30 to give our people flexibility on how they manage their working day, whether that’s in the office or working remotely.

We encourage open conversations between our people and managers to help navigate high‑need periods and individual circumstances. Our goal is to create an environment where people feel genuinely supported to do their best—both in their careers and in their lives outside of work.

Be Your Best: We want everyone to make the most of the opportunity to shine and showcase your talents and we are happy to make adjustments in the recruitment process so you can be your best.

Diversity, Equity & Inclusion at OMG: At OMG, our vision is to be an agency where difference is valued and everyone is able to thrive in a culture of equality, inclusion and belonging. We are committed to providing a truly inclusive environment that reflects today’s society, where everyone is able to bring their true selves to work, and where diverse voices and backgrounds are valued, heard, and well‑represented.