What we are looking for

We are looking for a Planning Director who is comfortable discussing Brands and understands the fundamentals of comms work, but truly revels in Product Strategy and Digital Transformation work. Someone who loves a North Star as much as a Brand Positioning document and is just that whisker more excited by the latest site design or eCommerce build than they are by the Superbowl ads this year.

As Planning Director, you will help key clients set their strategic thinking, open up opportunities to create new experiences for their customers and be the strategic lead in Discovery, Definition and Build stages, working alongside client services, CX, UX, and technology teams. You should be comfortable running workshops, uncovering customer insights, delving into cultural influences, understanding how expectations are set by other brands and connecting all this with the business needs of the category & corporation.

The initial account will be a retail-focused household name. You will undoubtedly get involved in sectors beyond this, so we’re less concerned with experience in this category and more interested in how you approach strategic projects and how you’ve helped brands to create new experiences and achieve real digital transformation.

What you’ll be doing

• Lead key clients and develop strong strategic direction and recommendations.
• You apply imagination, and raise the bar of our experience work through simple disruptive planning, breadth and opportunities for integration in the work.
• Work at a strategic level with client management and senior stakeholders to help clients optimise value and manage the change associated with digital solutions through trusted relationships that you will develop. 
• You partner with a BL and the UX/design team to ensure client buy-in, helping to protect the integrity of the work at all times. You make the case for new and different creativity.
• You add to the agency’s profile within the industry, and you contribute to ensuring that our credibility is recognized outside of our industry, actively seeking opportunities to create buzz.
• You have extensive knowledge of the commercial drivers of your Client business, and work in partnership with senior stakeholders to deliver commercially-led, disruptive marketing strategies. You regularly identify areas of brand and commercial growth above and beyond BAU.
• You lead the performance agenda with the client, ensuring that there is sufficient data and reporting structures in place in order to put commercial performance at the heart of every project. Input on costing and scoping strategy input for proposals.
• Understand key consumer behaviours, client business needs/goals, culture, digital technology and trends.
• Compile and conduct research for client teams, including competitive data, emerging opportunities, ethnography studies, and consumer insights.
• Write clear, compelling internal briefs and inspire UX/design team.
• Stay abreast of developments and thinking in the wider platform strategy, engagement and adoption of technology, and use this information to inspire your clients and the team around you.

Who we're looking for

• An ambitious, curious, and brave human
• Digital Experience & Digital Transformation expertise with an intuitive understanding of both brands and the digital world
• Great presentation skills (obviously)
• Someone who enjoys presenting and is skilled at crafting a presentation story
• A degree of some sort will help us understand your background and point of view
• Someone who believe it’s more important to be interesting than to be right

Nice to have but not essential:

• A sense of humour

What we can offer you

We don’t settle for people who can just do the job, we look for people that go beyond that and always push our thinking to be better than yesterday. We believe that this is what makes our agency a great place to be – a space where you’re never far away from the best minds to learn from.

We want you to be comfortable and proud every day of the week and have created an open and inclusive environment where you can bring your whole self to work. We don’t want you to just fit into our culture, we want your uniqueness and diversity of background to add to it and make this an agency where we all have a real sense of belonging and purpose. We are a community. 

Our focus is on keeping teams connected and engaged whether we're in the office or working from home, putting people’s wellbeing first, ensuring every person has access to our learning and development programme and building an inclusive workplace. We have a weekly ‘Staying Connected Calendar’ which is full to the brim of training you can get involved in, inspiration sessions hosted by external partners to check out and wellbeing classes and tips and tricks to look after your mind, body and soul. From yoga, Pilates, HIIT, hypnotherapy, a Strava cycling group, 1:1 resilience sessions and trained mental health first aiders. To name a few. Within our office we have a dedicated wellness studio and this year we built a brand new learning lab. Here we host weekly lunchtime lessons that supports iLearn, our learning & development portal home to 100s of sessions for you to access. We're also committed to building an inclusive, equitable and diverse workforce driven by our Inclusion Council and Employee Resource Groups; Rise, Unite, Re:think, Noir, Wellbeing and Access all Areas.

Your career development is important to us and should you ever choose to move on from Wunderman Thompson, we want you to be better than when you joined us. Thrive will provide you with the framework and support needed to reach your career aspirations. There really is no shortage of opportunities here for the right person that is prepared to roll their sleeves up, get involved and collaborate with those around them to deliver the best work for our clients and our agency.