Cultural Analyst

As Leo Burnett himself once said: "At the end of the day, we're just people talking to people." And that sums up how we think. We never forget that on the other side of every screen, watching every ad or reading every tweet are people. Not just pairs of eyes with credit cards. But human beings, who want to be entertained, engaged and listened to. At Leo Burnett we like to make the good stuff in life accessible to everyone. It's our agency's big shiny North Star, guiding everything from our work and how we build our culture, to the values we uphold and the initiatives we implement to improve Diversity Equity & Inclusion.

We believe in the power of a strong culture that puts people and creativity at the heart of everything we do. Our incredible team is made up of some of the most passionate and creative minds in the industry, and you'll be hard pushed to find a more genuinely friendly bunch. We've created an informal atmosphere where everyone is invited to share their ideas and thrive. And that way of working. Well, it's working. We're proud to say that our staff survey shows record happiness scores over the last 12 months.

We are an open, down to earth and friendly bunch who are always on the lookout for passionate and curious people to join our gang. It's never been more important to us to reflect the wonderful mix of people who consume our advertising, which is why when it comes to improving Diversity Equity & Inclusion we're not just talking the talk, we're walking the walk. Our internal group D&I Allies at Leo's (DIAL) was formed to help us make and track progress against our commitment to DE&I. DIAL spearheads policies, processes and initiatives to actively advance positive change.

Furthermore, in 2022 we created The Everyone Way, a process designed to embed positive DE&I practices into the creative process with our clients, working alongside DE&I consultancies The Unmistakables and The Diversity Standards Collective. We also support industry-wide initiatives such as Unstereotype Alliance, Free the Work, Just Runners, WACL and Bloom to name a few. It's our distinctive approach, combined with our passion for populist creativity and relentless pursuit of excellence that makes Leo Burnett such a uniquely special and enjoyable place to work.

Our Commitment to Diversity & Inclusion

Diversity and inclusion are a core part of our DNA at Leo Burnett. We're committed to building an inclusive culture that encourages, celebrates, and supports our wonderfully diverse employee group irrelevant of their age, gender identity, race, sexual orientation, physical or mental ability or ethnicity. Diversity and inclusion fuel our creativity and innovation, it enables us to be closer to our people and audiences. We will continue to strive to create a culture and environment where everyone feels empowered and more importantly comfortable enough to bring their full, authentic selves to work.

We are committed to providing reasonable adjustments for employees with disabilities and for candidates in our application process. If you need assistance or adjustment due to a disability, please contact us.

What You'll Be Doing:

We're looking for a Cultural Analyst to help connect some of the nation's biggest and best-loved brands to culture. Sitting within Leo Burnett's Data and Analytics team in the Strategy and Planning department, you'll work closely with Planners to fuel strategies, creative briefs and always-on social with fresh insight and observation. This is a role for someone who lives and breathes culture, has a social-first mindset, and knows how to turn the noise of the internet into clear, compelling insight. You'll work across all clients in the agency, making culture your currency and insight your craft.

Key responsibilities will include:

• Social analysis: Undertaking data-led analysis of social conversations, social listening, search analysis and analysis of other digital and social data sources through a uniquely cultural lens. Championing social data across the agency and clients as a key touchpoint of cultural insights.
• Cultural Analysis: You'll work with strategists and account teams to build a real understanding of culture and spot what's emerging from the social landscape. This means getting into the detail of qualitative social/digital data, finding patterns in how people talk online, tracking how cultural narratives shift over time, and getting under the skin of different audience groups and subcultures.
• Research oversight & management: You will help to run "PopPulse", an ongoing ethnography-based piece of research set up by Leo Burnett to understand what the big (and small) themes impacting British culture are today.
• Insight generation: you will work with planners to enrich briefs and strategies with revelatory and inspiring cultural insight. The briefs you'll work on will vary - from looking at the culture that surrounds Valentine's Day for Morrisons, to helping McDonald's understand the culture of fried chicken.
• Working across teams and departments: This role sits across all clients in the agency, you will gain rapid insight into the various clients and teams across the agency and leverage the role and importance of culture in their specific sector/industry.
• Thought leadership: You will own a weekly cultural insights newsletter shared across the agency and with clients with your cultural hot takes, digging into the freshest trends across social and leveraging your expert opinion.

What Skills We're After:

• Social listening: you'll have a social-first mindset and be fluent in all social platforms (from TikTok to Reddit) with hands-on experience using social listening tools (e.g. Brandwatch).
• Live and breathe culture: our go-to culture expert, both on and offline, you have a deep understanding of the intersection of brand and culture and how to leverage cultural insights and analysis to fuel inspiration for our internal teams and clients.
• Obsessed with what people are watching, following, creating, listening to. You're skilled at surfacing subcultures and identifying opportunities for our clients to show up authentically.
• Social obsessed: you're perpetually online and possess a keen cultural sensibility. You thrive on discovering new platforms, channels, creators and trends and crucially you're able to craft these findings into actionable recommendations.
• Data analysis: you're experienced using Excel to analyse and quantify your results.
• Research skills: You draw upon a broader range of research skills including qual / quant as well as secondary desk research.
• Confident communicator: You're a confident, credible presenter and written communicator, able to share complex ideas and information in a digestible format.

What Qualities We're Looking For:

• Analytical
• Entrepreneurial
• Collaborative
• Resourceful
• Autonomous

Leo Burnett offers a wide range of benefits to support our employees. Full details are shared when you join, but highlights include core benefits such as Pension, Life Assurance, and Private Medical cover, alongside enhanced policies like Reflection Days and Shared Parental Leave.

At Leo Burnett, we are proud to be an equal opportunities employer. We welcome and encourage applications from people of all backgrounds, and do not discriminate on the basis of race, ethnicity, nationality, religion or belief, disability, age, citizenship, relationship status, sexual orientation, gender identity, or any other protected characteristic. We are committed to providing a fair, accessible, and inclusive recruitment process. If you have any access needs - for example, related to disability, neurodivergence, or a health condition - please let us know. We'll work with you to ensure the process works for you.