Associate Director, Media Planning

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.

Overview:
The Associate Director, Strategy is the day-to-day steward of traditional media communication for assigned brands, including accurate budget control and flow of media activity. They will be required to develop and maintain a strong knowledge of their clients’ business and apply their media understanding accordingly to help deliver against the clients’ needs/objectives. They will work closely with the Managers in the development and communication of all media recommendations.

• Strong cross-channel planning and buying skills, particularly in offline media
• Successful at building strong, collaborative client relationships, instilling trust and authority on behalf of the agency
• Ability to manage timelines, projects and personnel within direct report team and across cross-functional teams
• Flexible and able to keep up with a fast-paced, constantly-evolving environment
• The capacity to successfully manage multiple work streams at one time
• Strong foundation in strategic and critical thinking, with an eye for finding ways to innovate and collaborate with teams to improve outputs
• Experience with productive and positive vendor relationship management
• Should possess confidence and composure and polished presentation skills to effectively attend and lead in-person meetings with key clients on a daily basis
• Self-motivation and organization are key, given coordination with multiple internal and external

• Have been working in traditional media planning, buying and management for 5+ years with progressive levels of responsibility
• Ability to think strategically, take into account the bigger picture, analyze everything and think critically when solving problems to come up with unconventional solutions
• Have lead a team before, know what it takes to manage a group, even when a lot of moving parts are involved, able to take care of the day-to-day part of overseeing others, and good at helping them grow and realize their own potential
• Build great relationships with clients, vendors, and reps; have a history negotiating to get the job done right and track record of success in media; understand business and have a knack for sharing complicated ideas in a simple, understandable way
• Already active in the kinds of forward-thinking gadgets and communities that are changing our business; have a passion for tablets, smartphones, social networks, instant messaging, widgets, apps, blogs and whatever is new and life-changing, and want to find ways to make them work for brands

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

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