Associate Director, Planning, UK

4011 - Associate Director, Planning, UK

Role Summary and Impact

About WPP 650                     

Join an award-winning team at the heart of UK government, where your work will genuinely shape lives. As part of WPP 650 you’ll be part of a supportive, collaborative environment that values curiosity, kindness, and growth. Together, we use behaviour change principles to design smarter services, influence better decisions, and help millions of people across the country.

Named WPP 650, after the 650 UK constituencies, the name is a reminder that our work must reflect the full breadth of the country, every community, every audience. No two days are the same. The challenges are complex, the problems worth solving, and the learning constant. You’ll tackle issues that matter, alongside talented colleagues who care deeply about what they do. It’s demanding – but always rewarding.

WPP 650 is a bespoke agency unit within WPP, dedicated to serving the evolving communications needs of government clients. We bring together the best of WPP's talent, technology, and insights to deliver impactful, modern, and effective public communications. We are at the forefront of reimagining how government engages with its citizens.

This is meaningful work with real-world impact – the kind you can point to with pride.

About the role:

The planning team are the guardians of creating industry leading, unrivalled work at WPP 650. We are central conduits to all specialists, striving to push boundaries and have a positive impact on consumers and brand.

WPP 650 is looking for a Associate Director, Planning to join our growing planning team, to drive planning across specific clients and be a media planning expert.

In this role, you will:

Media planning craft:

• Develop an advanced understanding of media channels, channel ecosystems and planning best practices.
• Start to translate strategic approach into planning practices for specific client briefs and pitches.
• Have an advanced understanding of WPP 650’s Consumer Journey thinking and planning philosophy across all client work. Including being an expert in a broad set of internal tools, as well as external tools to build a deep understanding of the consumer, the client’s business and its specific opportunities.
• Have an expert overview of the media market landscape, trends and start to build media owner relationships.

Campaign management & effective communication:

• Oversee campaign management, ensuring quality control and output is of the highest standard.
• Develop a skilled understand of commercial practises and of the wider agency.
• Build and maintain client and agency relationships at a mid-senior level, to ensure a comprehensive understanding of stakeholders and client business.

Comms planning and storytelling:

• Own planning presentations including defining the inputs needed and working with the wider teams to compile work and meet deadlines.
• Lead brainstorm and idea creation for campaigns
• Start to independently problem solve, including integrating and questioning data and insights and find solutions based on knowledge and experience.

Skills and Experience

Practice Area Knowledge -Skilled- Develops breadth and depth of industry understanding. Becomes confident using tools, technology, techniques and systems and is able to train others. Comfortable presenting both direct from platform (Open) and developing a story from data but delivered outside of platform (Telmar etc). Can confidently answer client questions and liaise with internal teams on best solutions to use.

Problem Solving – Skilled - Uses critical questioning and maintains a broad perspective when analyzing information to gain a deeper understanding of the problem and wider impact. Quickly generates appropriate solutions informed by previous experience. Understands how to resolve escalated issues and supports others to problem solve. Supports or leads troubleshooting communication for issues.

Stakeholder Relationships – Skilled - Has an expert knowledge of client and agency structures. Can identify key decision makers and understands their perspectives which is used to build relationships. Has strong knowledge of the client sector/industry which is shared to build strategies and plans. Identifies strategic issues and raises questions to help stakeholders explore and understand their wider business challenges. ​​​​​​​ Can easily suggest business solutions to match client/stakeholder needs and achieve objectives.

Effective Communication -Advanced- Leads the delivery of relevant and accurate information to drive maximum impact. Consistently delivers communications to influence and educate all levels of seniority, appropriately judging the demands of the situation. Creatively develops presentations and comms to help with the understanding/education of complex information. Guides others on the best practices and approaches for creating clear, concise and organized communication materials to convey plans in a user-friendly way.

Campaign Management – Advanced - Reviews the work of others to ensure accuracy and thoroughness objectives have been met; provides coaching on ways to improve work outputs.  Applies best practice to campaign management and acts as the escalation point for issues.  Provide actionable insights during mid and post campaign reports to improve in-flight optimizations and future campaign brief recommendations.  Oversees team members to discuss current projects, workload and activities prioritises resources accordingly.  Improves workload management by supporting other in setting priorities and by postponing less relevant work.

Compelling Storytelling – Skilled - Applies big picture thinking in work and proactively leverages an understanding of the organization and key industry trends.  Understand the different elements of responses.  Designs differentiated communications (content focus, style, presentation etc) for various internal and external audiences.

Ideas Creation – Advanced - Lead new projects/activities that can create ideas to deliver effective solutions to clients’ business objectives.  Ability to proactively generate ideas to provoke and deliver against broader business strategies.  Coaches others to gain new insights and view opportunities from different perspectives.  Championing an environment that fosters innovation by encouraging others to openly share and build on other’s new ideas, products and solutions

Comms Planning – Skilled - Applies knowledge of client, audience, channel, market and category to effectively deliver compelling multi-media plans.  Translates learnings and trends to create marketing communication strategies that are effective with clear measurement.   Application of purchase journey thinking and visualization of how the media plan works channels.  Translation of strategic direction/platform/provocation into directional role for media, channel role and behaviour in channel.  Identifies and recommends budget shifts as campaign is in-flight where appropriate.

Life at WPP Media & Benefits

Our passion for shaping the next era of media includes investing in our employees to help them do their best work, and we’re just as committed to employee growth as we are to responsible media investment. WPP Media employees can tap into the global WPP Media & WPP networks to pursue their passions, grow their networks, and learn at the cutting edge of marketing and advertising. We have a variety of employee resource groups and host frequent in-office events showcasing team wins, sharing thought leadership, and celebrating holidays and milestone events. Our benefits include competitive medical, group retirement plans, vision, and dental insurance, significant paid time off, preferential partner discounts, and employee mental health awareness days.  

WPP Media 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 believe the best work happens when we're together, fostering creativity, collaboration, and connection. That's why we’ve adopted a hybrid approach, with teams in the office around four days a week. If you require accommodations or flexibility, please discuss this with the hiring team during the interview process.

Please note this is a UK based role and requires individuals to have the right to work in this location

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