Senior Influence Strategist

Ogilvy has been creating impact for brands through iconic, culture‑changing, value‑driving ideas since the company was founded by David Ogilvy 75 years ago. It builds on that rich legacy through Borderless Creativity – innovating at the intersections of its advertising, public relations, relationship design, consulting, and health capabilities with experts collaborating seamlessly across over 120 offices in nearly 90 countries. Ogilvy currently ranks as the #1 global agency network for creative excellence and effectiveness by WARC, signifying its ability to deliver creative solutions that drive unreasonable impact for clients and communities. Ogilvy is a WPP company (NYSE: WPP). For more information, visit Ogilvy.com, and follow us on LinkedIn, X, Instagram, and Facebook.

Senior Influence Strategist
(Large Tech Client)

Department: PR & Influence
Location: London
Contract type: Fixed‑Term (12 months)
Full Time/Part Time: Full Time
Reporting into: Influence Strategy Director

About Ogilvy:

Ogilvy UK has been creating iconic ideas that deliver impact at scale for clients ever since David Ogilvy founded the company in 1948. The agency specialises in bringing together brand advertising, customer experience marketing, PR, influence and consulting, all fuelled by Behavioural Science. Our world‑class award‑winning creative campaigns deliver solutions for clients including Sainsbury’s, Lloyds Banking Group, Madri, Unilever and Mondelēz International.

Ogilvy’s influencer marketing practice is the largest globally; we are proud to be the most awarded influencer agency for six years running and the recipient of the Cannes Grand Prix for Social & Creator for two consecutive years.

Ogilvy UK also hosts the world’s biggest festival of behavioural science and creativity, Nudgestock – which is now in its 12th year. James Murphy is the CEO of Ogilvy Group UK, which includes Ogilvy UK and New Commercial Arts (NCA), a boutique creative agency he co‑founded in 2020, recently acquired by WPP.

The role:

We are looking for a brilliant thinker who creates consumer and corporate strategies rooted in culture that earn the right to be seen and talked about. We need someone who is influence first, engrained in social culture and always on top of the latest channel formats and trends. You should be comfortable with both paid and earned strategies, and excited by the idea of working across a plethora of portfolios. As part of the Influence offering at Ogilvy UK, you will bring insight, inspiration and strategic counsel to a broad range of high‑profile corporate and consumer brands across both paid and earned. You’ll be working primarily within the Influence team – so knowing how to earn attention is key – but earned‑first experience and insight is increasingly relevant for all of Ogilvy’s mega businesses. From customer experience, behavioural science or advertising and branding – you’ll have plenty of shiny new toys to play with.

The mission of the strategy team is not only to find smart answers to client’s tough problems but also to make the creative output of the agency the best it can be. Projects range from brand‑led strategic positioning projects, launching new products with influencers and services, developing communications frameworks and research expertise among many other things.

In our world, no day, nor brief, is the same, meaning an embracing of agility and efficiency are vital. You will know the importance of working collaboratively with other planners to solve problems, as much as you know how to guide creative teams on influence specific work. And of course, always bringing a natural curiosity for the many different ways customers interact with brands.

Skillset:

• We are looking for someone who has the thirst for unlocking powerful influence insights and comms plans to drive great paid and earned thinking across the creative process.
• Help senior clients formulate better briefs and tasks and define the true nature of their problem.
• Help senior clients to understand the role for influence strategy within their broader comms and marketing planning.
• Lead and design stakeholder immersion processes to get under the skin of a business problem.
• Consistent ability to frame business problems in a surprising and fresh way. A master re‑framer.
• Seen as integral member of the client team “the go to consult” for influence strategy.

Defining the problem:

Challenge assumptions & lead across disciplines so the entire picture makes sense.

• Help senior clients formulate better briefs and tasks and define the true nature of their problem.
• Help senior clients to understand the role for influence strategy within their broader comms and marketing planning.
• Lead and design stakeholder immersion processes to get under the skin of a business problem.
• Consistent ability to frame business problems in a surprising and fresh way. A master re‑framer.
• Seen as integral member of the client team “the go to consult” for influence strategy.

Insight Creation: Finding things out, filtering them, rethinking them laterally to inspire.

Pioneer new research techniques with client and get to insights that shape businesses.

• Be our cultural ear to the ground, bring new inspiration and research on trends, tribes, new innovations, and fresh new thinking within influencer marketing and beyond.
• Bring the best of external insight to sharpen briefs and identify compelling creative territories.
• Able to assess research findings at speed and find new knowledge and insights.
• On top of the latest and most innovative research techniques and advocating their use.

Setting the Path: Giving inspiration, clarity & confidence to the team about what needs to be done.

Act as a triumvirate with Account and Creative lead to ensure positive direction of client activity.

• Leads the creation of a new brand strategies across wider client business not just campaign/project.
• Familiar with paid, owned, earned influence strategies and principles.
• Champion of a strategic influence ideas within the agency and with the client through their entire business.

Ideation: Helping creative & other disciplines come up with better ideas, faster.

Act as an idea originator outside of main briefs and proactively seeks to develop new ideas.

• Develops proactive briefs and inspires client and agency on the potential of influence.
• Creates new models for the future of paid and earned influence comms.
• Ensures channel/technology/audience thinking is baked into every creative strategy.
• Can articulate how an idea can influence all elements of client business rather than just comms.

Prototyping and Storytelling: Defining the idea, proving, communicating & selling it.

Pioneer new ways of framing and selling and idea, consistently using compelling soundbites.

• Can structure and lead a winning pitch without support from others.
• Can hold Marketing Director level presentations.
• A highly polished and compelling presenter in off‑the‑cuff and planned situations.

Manifesting the Work: Crafting the experience journey and delivery detail that brings the idea to life.

Influence senior clients into experimenting with new channels, content and technology.

• Can develop detailed strategies for earned and paid comms across both corporate and consumer client bases for influence.
• Working knowledge of social strategies across influence and beyond.
• Owns the development of how an idea can roadmap over three‑five years.

Measurement and Effectiveness: Proving if, how and why the work created real value for the business and consumers.

Show recognised expertise linked to proving the value of ideas to organisations.

• Sets up projects for integrated evaluation from the start.
• Contributes to the creation of effectiveness studies.
• Intimately familiar with the different measurement tools and metrics and understands the pros and cons of each.
• Consistently demonstrates effectiveness of campaigns outside of key metrics (influence on society etc).

At Ogilvy, our people are at the heart of what we do: a creative agency that sparks game‑changing ideas across culture and business through collaboration, integrity, and a celebration of self‑expression.

We believe in building powerful teams with purpose – and we relentlessly curate transformative initiatives that make our commitment to fairness, and equity a reality.

Our ultimate mission is to leave a positive impact on the world, creating a better future for all, while supporting and uplifting the global communities we serve. This is central to our mantra of Borderless Creativity.

Ogilvy is an equal opportunity employer and considers applicants for all positions without discrimination or regard to particular characteristics. We are committed to fostering a culture of respect in which everyone feels they belong and has the same opportunities to progress in their careers.

We have a commitment to making reasonable accommodation within the application process for candidates who require it. Please note that our contact email is for candidates requesting accommodation only; other inquiries will not receive a response.

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