PLANNING DIRECTOR　【Conversational Level Japanese OK】

The Planning Director is primarily responsible for developing consistent, high quality plan recommendations for world-renowned Food delivery services and Mobility businesses, through a deep understanding of the category & brand challenges. This role will be focused on turning business objectives into communications objectives and defining clear KPIs for measurement, and driving innovation that is founded in clear audience insight.

The Role Objective 
The Planning Director is primarily responsible for developing consistent, high quality plan recommendations for global brands through a deep understanding of the category & brand challenges. This role will be focused on turning business objectives into communications objectives and defining clear KPIs for measurement, and driving innovation that is founded in clear audience insight.

This is a leadership role, supporting Uber team lead in managing client relationships and internal team members.

Responsibilities

Planning Lead
• Plan, develop, present and lead execution of integrated media campaigns in multiple channels including predominantly digital but may include OOH and TV
• Maintain strong relationship with key Japan media partners and lead negotiations to get best possible output and value for client
• Client facing and work closely with other agency teams to establish and achieve specific media goals and objectives
• Provide insight and analysis to the client lead to support the development of data driven strategic recommendations for the client

Client Account Management
• Develop strong relationships with clients, be their go to person for Planning expertise
• Work with wider teams (including planning team, execution team both in Japan and India) to ensure regular reporting that serves the client’s needs.
• Lead on relevant part of client meetings, quarterly comp deep dives, workshops, etc.
• Keep client lead up to date on best practices and industry trends
• Liaise closely with regional strategy and digital team to apply best practices from other markets and localise regional/global principles & digital innovation

Operating and Technical Requirements
• Data oriented, able to navigate various platforms to query and generate necessary reports on competitive spends, consumer Behavior, relevant category data and campaign performance
• Review consumer insight and competitive reports interpretation and key learnings (aggregate and integrate research data in the plans)

People Management
• Work collaboratively with the client lead to develop the capability, skills and knowledge of our team.
• Mentor and provide direction to team members, challenge the team members to think creatively and break out from the comfort zone

Other Areas
• Demonstrate a business sense and a commercial understanding of profitability.
• Demonstrate an understanding of the media and technology developments that influence clients’ business.
• Be an advocate of continuous improvement, enthusiastic and positive with a “Can Do” attitude Flags up any serious performance issues immediately and seek help to manage them accordingly
• Be an advocate of continuous improvement, enthusiastic and positive with a “Can Do” attitude Flags up any serious performance issues immediately and seek help to manage them accordingly

Key Performance Indicators

• Product: outstanding plan execution & operational excellence. KPI TBC
• Client: satisfaction, retention and growth, contributing to a high score for strategy and activation planning in agency evaluation. KPI TRR score
• Commercial: client profitability. KPI Client Profitability target
•  Personal development: positive My360 feedback from manager, peers and clients

Education, skills and behaviours

• 10+ experience in planning role including at least 3 years of senior role that involves overseeing and guiding planning, managing & training team members
• You have to speak fluent English – 80% of the communications on Uber account is done in English. If you also speak Japanese that is a nice to have
• Adaptability and Agility to such a fast moving category – you need to think fast, move fast and be able to connect the dots and see the big picture
• Confidently & comfortably present ideas and strategy
• Proven track record in the relevant sector with category management experience
• Evidence of being able to influence and manage senior client stakeholders (media managers, marketing directors and country heads)
• Strong analytical skills to identify consumer journey planning
• Strong target orientation e.g. very results driven, ability to work effectively to targets
• Strong customer relationship management experience and proven ability in developing senior customer stakeholder relationships
• Evidence of strong collaboration skills used to develop team and client knowledge in order to grow shared understanding and knowledge to facilitate a step-change in strategic planning
• The ability to delegate, up and downwards, to coordinate between groups and departments and to be able to sell strategies, initiatives and ideas convincingly.

About EssenceMediacom
GroupM’s newest and largest agency –  delivers marketing breakthroughs for their clients. Disrupting the old models across media, creative, innovation and analytics, the agency has been built to find new opportunities for brands and deliver truly integrated media solutions.

Composed of 10,000 people across 120 offices globally EssenceMediacom combines Essence’s performance, data, analytics and creative technology DNA with MediaCom’s scaled multichannel audience planning and strategic media expertise.

The agency includes an enviable global client roster, which includes adidas, Bayer, Dell, Google, Mars, NBCUniversal, PlayStation, Procter & Gamble, The Coca-Cola Company and Uber, and will be responsible for more than $21bn in global media billings.

EssenceMediacom Creative Futures works at the intersection of data and technology, media and creative to drive relevance from brands.  Not disruptive or annoying, we strive to reshape how brands connect with consumers by creating advertising that is relevant and useful to the end user.  Our data-driven and insight-led approach truly delivers on the promise of 'right moment, right message’.

About Japan:
Japan is both the world’s third-largest media market and third-largest e-commerce market. As one of the first markets to develop a full mobile e-commerce ecosystem circa 2001 to 2002, Japanese digital consumers are experienced and discerning; digital marketing campaigns are sophisticated, multi-layered labor of love. While growth is lower in this mature market, e-commerce is projected to increase by 12% in 2016, 11% in 2017 – emerging technologies are driving substantial growth. Programmatic spend across all devices has seen a 156% increase between 2012 and now, with mobile Programmatic spend expected to grow 174% between now and 2017. If you want to excel in a mature, refined media advertising atmosphere and reach savvy consumers with equally-savvy media plans, Japan is the place to be.

GroupM is an equal opportunity employer. We view everyone as an individual and we understand that inclusion is more than just diversity – it’s about belonging. We celebrate the fact that everyone is unique and that’s what makes us so good at what we do. We pride ourselves on being a company that embraces difference and truly represents the global clients we work with.