Director, Communication Planning & Audience Insights

Chicago, IL, United States

Director, Communication Planning & Audience Insights Full-time

This is a hybrid role, requiring three days in-office each week. If you are contacted for an interview, your recruiter will discuss specifics with you, inclusive of any necessary reasonable accommodations.

About Spark Foundry:

Spark Foundry is a global media agency that exists to bring HEAT – Higher Engagement, Affinity, and Transactions – to brands. By combining flawless media fundamentals with aggressive innovation, Spark inspires consumers to pay more attention, to care more about our clients’ brands, and to buy more products and services from them.

Balancing the nimble spirit of a startup with the powerhouse soul of Publicis Media, Spark Foundry delivers the best of both worlds to a client roster that spans some of the world’s best and most beloved brands and companies. We combine boutique-caliber insights and service with the buying clout and first-look access of a global leader, bringing the heat to challenger brands that want to act like giants, and to giant brands that want to act like challengers.

With a bottom-up culture that celebrates diversity and aims for all voices to be heard, Spark has become a magnet for the industry’s best talent, with one of the best retention rates in the industry. And by applying a whole-person approach to professional and personal development, Spark develops a workforce that is well prepared for today’s challenges, and also poised to create meaningful careers in the years to come.

Because we know that heat arises the intersection of complementary forces, our professionals come from myriad disciplines and backgrounds: data, analytics, and insights, content and creative production, communications and strategy, finance and marketing, and sociology, psychology, and other liberal arts disciplines.

We are looking for a smart, dynamic, and collaborative Manager / Associate Director in Communications Strategy to work on one of Spark's largest client teams. We are building an audience centric media approach that uses sophisticated data, human insights and strategic thinking to solve our clients’ most critical business challenges. This position is a crucial partner to Media Planning / Client Management, Data Science, Content, Investment and Analytics teams. As a Communications Strategist, you will connect the dots for clients from an audience first approach, right up to execution.

Responsibilities

Own Audience Definition and Insights

Use all available audience data to identify audiences, generate audience profiles and insights. These include syndicated sources and behavioral/transactional data.

Ability to understand the importance of inclusive audiences and how that pulls through in Content and Media plans (with dedicated budgets and tactics)

Develop strong knowledge of the media and cultural landscape, and greatest opportunities for the client to drive their business forward.

Sit at intersection of all investment channels by providing direction during the early stages of the media planning / tactical processes (Content / Media Planning, Social / Media Planning, Programmatic / Media Planning, Audio / Media Planning, etc.); Be the voice of the consumer during the investment stages

Construct the narratives that guarantee content and media plans are rooted in the overarching comms strategy.

Work closely with Data and Martech teams, and upstream with clients to ensure audience understanding is woven into client briefs.

Facilitate ideas and innovation in partnership with content, planning and activation teams prior to RFPs going out. Tap into media and social/cultural trends to develop deeper audience understanding and fuel ideas and tactics that are more connected with audience mindsets. Provide continuity across Content and media channels.

Partner in the Media RFP process - work with planning and activation teams to ensure voice of the consumer is ‘heard’ in RFPs to media partners.

Work closely with Test & Learn teams to ensure learning agenda is tied to client objectives and audiences.

Work closely with Analytics team to ensure performance learnings are feeding back to Comms Strategy.

By applying learnings from Publicis Media tools, inject broader strategic thinking to post-campaign reports and competitive analyses.

Build a strong and successful client relationship. You will interact with the client on a regular basis to understand their needs and help them grow their business.

5+ years experience

Work hands on with audience data sources. Excel and powerpoint skills are critical.

Ability to explain complex approaches in simple language that is relevant and meaningful to clients.

Hunger and curiosity to drive innovation and uptake of emerging platforms and new ideas.

Think strategically. You take into account the bigger picture. You analyze everything and think critically when solving problems to come up with unconventional solutions.

You are constantly on the lookout for the latest industry news, keeping up with new media/technology and marketing opportunities, as well as social, cultural and category information.

Ability to use soft skills and collaborative techniques with partners across the client team.

This is a hybrid role, requiring three days in-office each week. If you are contacted for an interview, your recruiter will discuss specifics with you, inclusive of any necessary reasonable accommodations.

All your information will be kept confidential according to EEO guidelines.

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