Job Order: 5407
Staff Representative: Tim Jadwin
Position: Sr. Brand Planner
Location: New York
Company Summary:
Our client is an advertising and marketing firm serving primarily the pharmaceutical industry. It specializes in branding and strategy.
Description:
Overview:
This position is an important third leader on the brand, working closely with both the Account Lead and Creative Lead to offer both the work and the client more robust customer insight. The position is responsible for managing and leading a team or teams in all aspects of the strategic planning process and marrying the strategy with in-depth customer insight. This responsibility is global for all global brands. A key focus will be to understand the underlying motivations of customers in order to successfully create the path between the brand, the creative team/execution, and the customers. Drives the strategic planning process, attends, conducts, synthesizes research and learning’s about key customers, and utilizes the information to increase the effectiveness of the brand and its communications.
Description of Duties:
- Becomes integrated in the strategic planning process with the clients to help direct its outcomes
- Shared responsibility for the overall strategic planning process with the assigned team(s)
- Drives the Rituals for how to liberate brands and ideas across assignment. The primary focus will be on Illumination and Transformation and will draw from across companies through individuals and "Idea Liberation teams"
- Partners with Account Services Lead and Creative Lead to offer both the work and the client more robust customer insight
- Functions as the portal for the research department, working closely with the research team to gather and discern learning’s, gleaned from different research methodologies, track competitors, keep abreast of the literature, and enrich the knowledge base for strategy and insight development
- Attends research initiatives sponsored by the client in order to gain understanding of customer core needs
- Creates and designs new research to further explore underlying customer motivations as it relates to brand communications
- Spots and analyzes trends, both inside the category and in society at large that brands can take advantage of
- Works closely with the Account Lead to develop a strategic positioning that is drawn as much from customer insight as the product promise
- Helps design "the bridge", the most involving, effective connection between the product and the user.
- Works closely with the Account and Creative Leads to develop the Creative Cube, bringing a fuller picture of the customer and to what voice the customer will be most receptive to the picture
- Helps the Creative and Account Leads create both the "Brand Paradox" and "Brand Dialogue" to help bring alive the strategic positioning and help drive the tactical plan that will shape human behaviors
- Acts as an integrated salesman and representative of the tools
- Works with media planning (and Account and Creative) to bring stronger behavioral insight to the communications plan
- Will shape the "argument" on how to set up and sell the agency point-of-view and recommendations, especially from the customer need and receptivity angles
- Will help drive proactive thinking on our brands, generating "What’s Next?" ideas
- Responsible for uncovering and tracking "innovative thinking and ideas" from across the industry and applying relevant innovative thinking/solutions to our client plans and activities
- Responsible for helping to crystallize for clients the value or return on investment of our approach and ideas
- Bachelors degree required, MBA or advanced degree preferred
- 10 years experience in marketing or advertising, at least 5 of which in a senior management capacity
- Travel up to 40% of the time
- Strong analytical and strategic planning skills
- Excellent interpersonal and communication skills (may require specific industry and therapeutic expertise)
- Experience in planner function - within another agency is preferred
- Innovative Ability: Able to develop unique and innovative research methodologies that yield deeper insights into physicians and their patients
- Interpretive Skills: Ability to understand customer experiences through the eyes of the customer and discern behavioral motivations
- Presentation Skills: Is effective in a variety of formal presentation settings: one-on-one, small/large groups, with peers, subordinates, and team leaders; is effective both inside and outside the organization, on both cool data and hot and controversial topics; commands attention and can manage group process during the presentation
