Communications Manager in London

Initiative unlocks business growth for the world’s most ambitious brands. We believe in the power of media to reshape our industry and orchestrate a brand’s entire consumer experience, by balancing both what unites people and what makes them different. When brands unite people in culture, they build Fame, and when brands connect individuals to their unique journeys, they build customer Flow. Media responsibility is at the forefront of everything we do, whether it’s creating media plans that reflect the diversity of our communities, promote brand safety, and foster sustainability. Our agency celebrates diversity in an inclusive environment where all of our 6,000+ strong talent across 90+ markets feel seen, heard, and valued. Our vision is to create not only a better media company, but also a better media industry, and maybe even a better world.

There is a really exciting opportunity to join our brand new Team UTD, a fully integrated media and creative team working together on NatWest. This team is agile, fast-paced and will give you a lot of opportunity to work across Owned, Earned, Shared and Paid. As a Manager on NatWest, you are responsible for managing the production and application of accurate and insightful consumer, cultural, media and market intelligence to contribute to an impactful communications ecosystem for your client. You will be supporting the team’s efforts to ensure brilliant strategy, design, flawless execution, and most importantly, delivery on KPIs and business results for your client.

You are the day-to-day contact for the client and the internal team. You are supporting the Associate Director and Group Director to manage planning across disciplines to ensure everything is operating smoothly, accurately, and on deadline. You are learning to be an authority on your client’s business to the agency and an authority on Initiative and the SBUs to the clients. In this role, you are responsible for the preparation of the OESP plan, and ensuring the communications plan is built on solid, data rich fundamentals that help brands grow. Working with partnerships, media vendors, and your communications design team, you ensure the accuracy of the inputs required for the development of the flowchart, and are responsible for ensuring any changes made to the approach are reflected in the plan.

As Manager, you are an expert in the Initiative design process, tools and techniques, and how to best apply and adapt these for a given scenario. You are a gifted planner who is able to synergize multiple data points into cohesive story around the communications idea. You are a strong and nurturing manager, able to ensure your support design talent are able to produce high quality planning inputs that result in an effective, culturally resonant, highly connected communications solution. Within this role, you will not only get the opportunity to work with paid teams but will be seamlessly linked to creative teams, experience teams and will learn about the whole communications ecosystem, being the planning expert assigned to a particular franchise. This genuinely will be a new operating model for the industry, and will be focused around creating the best work in the industry.

Key Responsibilities

• Responsible for the delivery of accurate, impactful inputs that power the client’s communications plan and grow their business.
• Responsible for the timely, accurate delivery of day to day requests from the client and team.
• Responsible for regular trend identification, culture and competitive analysis for client.
• Begins to build relationships with day to day leads on the client side, as well as within Team UTD.
• Project manages all client proposals, recommendations and points of view.
• Manages and is accountable for ensuring best in class financial stewardship (PO process, media budget management, client billing, billing discrepancies).
• Responsible for the planning within a certain franchise, alongside the Associate Director and Group Director.
• Day to day project management support across the full integrated client team.
• Work with the Design and Investment teams to develop the RFP to develop the best possible plan for the communications idea.
• Attend client briefings, summarise all client needs and objectives to Client Advice senior leaders and to the integrated Strategy, Design and Partnership leads.
• Build relationships and support the needs of all discipline team members that work with your client(s).
• Support your Associate Director in leading key projects and internal timelines.

Commercial

• Contribute to the profitability of primary accounts, and involvement of SBU.
• Contributor to new business as required.

Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s):

• Contribute key media inputs for best in class communications planning solutions that propel the communications idea.
• Able to effectively lead the management of the client’s communications budget to successful outcomes.
• Accurately and effectively manage client’s day to day design product requirements.
• Works closely within Team UTD to ensure media and creative are tightly linked.
• Able to successfully manage Design planning outputs from team.
• Key contributor to RFP process, including briefing and partner selection together with Partnership colleagues (may oversee this on smaller briefs / accounts).
• Able to deploy tools and techniques to deliver best in class communications planning outcomes across OESP.

Commercial

• Contributor to SBU revenue growth via communications design (client base).
• Contributor to organic revenue growth from communications design scope (client base).

Desired Skills & Experience

• Experience in integrated planning role in media, publisher / vendor, or communications discipline (digital, content).
• Media planning skills must be polished or able to be developed.
• Category or audience experience as relevant per assignment.
• Experience in managing or developing staff.
• Ability to delegate and oversee direct reports.
• Excellent written, verbal communication and presentation skills.
• Strong time-management and organisational skills.
• Required PC proficiency and solid working knowledge of Microsoft Office (MS Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc.).
• Proven problem solving ability.
• Ability to work successfully within a team, handling multiple projects and meeting tight deadlines under pressure.

Employee Transparency

At IPG Mediabrands, we celebrate differences and believe this makes us stronger. IPG Mediabrands are an equal-opportunity employer committed to championing an inclusive culture that provides a sense of belonging for all our employees. We do not discriminate against any applicant based on age, disability, race, colour, ethnicity, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, belief, marital status or any other characteristic protected by law.

Please reach out to Ninette if you would like to have a confidential conversation regarding any adjustments that would ensure our recruitment process is accessible for you. Please note requesting a reasonable adjustment will not affect your application.

The Perks

We aim to provide all our people with a supportive and fun work environment where you can develop your full potential and benefit from the broad range of opportunities within the agency. When you join us, we want to make sure you feel valued – and that you are rewarded for your fantastic work. So, we also offer a range of benefits:

• Flexi–leave, with 25 days annual leave to be taken as minimum. In addition to your holiday entitlement, the office usually closes between Christmas & New Year.
• Free breakfast and free lunch.
• Early finish Fridays.
• Core Hours (Mon-Thurs, flexible start/finish times).
• Electric vehicle salary sacrifice car scheme.
• Interest free season ticket loan.
• Paid time off for Volunteering.
• Group Income Protection.
• Life Assurance.
• Private Medical Insurance or Health Cash Plan (dependent on level).
• Group Personal Pension Plan with matched contributions from 3-6%.
• Generous Parental Leave & Pay.
• Employee Assistance Programme.
• Free eye tests.
• Flexible benefits including Dental, Travel insurance, Cycle to Work, Gym Discounts and many more!