Strategy Director

Publicis Groupe; Toronto; Hybrid; CAD 80,000 - 120,000; Full time

Job summary

An established industry player seeks a dynamic Strategy Director to lead strategic planning and inspire creativity across integrated campaigns. This role demands a blend of strategic insight and innovative thinking to carve out unique brand narratives. With a commitment to diversity and community engagement, the agency fosters a collaborative environment where your ideas can flourish. Join a team that values creativity and strategic excellence, and help shape the future of brand communication in a rapidly evolving landscape. If you have a passion for storytelling and a track record of successful marketing strategies, this opportunity is perfect for you.

Benefits

Flexible Work Hours

Health and Dental Benefits

Professional Development Opportunities

Social Club Events

Community Engagement Programs

Qualifications

• 8-10+ years of strategic planning experience with a proven track record.
• Deep integrated planning experience with emphasis on storytelling.
• Strong reputation for relationships with creative and account leaders.

Responsibilities

• Lead the strategic planning process to arrive at powerful brand ideas.
• Create compelling consumer profiles that provide meaningful insights.
• Conduct in-depth scouting into cultural trends and distill actionable recommendations.

Skills

Strategic Planning

Digital Strategy

Creative Brief Writing

Consumer Insights

Workshop Facilitation

Communication Skills

Education

Bachelor's Degree in Marketing or Related Field

MBA or Advanced Degree

Tools

Market Research Tools

Digital Marketing Platforms

Job description

Company description

Publicis is an omni-channel communications agency with over 600 employees across our Canadian operations.The office is the largest in our industry in Canada and boasts talent across various disciplines of marketing and advertising expertise. Publicis carries a balanced split of Canadian, U.S. and Global clients for which we are Agency of Record. Publicis supports a range of D&I actions through our Driving Change team as well as giving back to the community through a long-standing participation in the Out of the Cold Program. With a strong, active and familial culture, Pub United is the agency’s social club, hosting events as wide reaching as Curling, Trivia Nights and more.

Overview

About the job

Publicis is an omni-channel communications agency with over 600 employees across our Canadian operations. The office is the largest in our industry in Canada and boasts talent across various disciplines of marketing and advertising expertise. Publicis carries a balanced split of Canadian, U.S. and Global clients for which we are Agency of Record. Publicis supports a range of D&I actions through our Driving Change team as well as giving back to the community through a long-standing participation in the Out of the Cold Program. With a strong, active and familial culture, Pub United is the agency’s social club, hosting events as wide reaching as Curling, Trivia Nights and more.

Overview

Publicis is a growth company. Using the alchemy of intelligence, creativity and technology we create an unfair advantage for our clients by delivering brand attraction, desire and transaction. We’re a global, advertising agency with a passion to harness the power of creativity in all its forms. And that’s where you come in!

You’re an experienced strategist whose proven smarts, passion and curiosity have made you committed to helping clients understand and navigate our ever-changing world. Over the past 6 - 8 years you’ve worked at an agency honing your skill and craft as a planner. You effectively apply a number of tools and techniques to uncover, articulate, and architect clear and compelling strategies and unexpected brand ideas that carve out a unique and differentiating place for brands in the marketplace.

In addition, across a number of complex clients of scale, you’ve demonstrated your ability to work with creatives and technologists as a core member of a multi-disciplinary engagement team. You provide business-relevant perspective on communication challenges. This typically involves developing an understanding of the market and competitive factors, cultural trends and deep consumer understanding. You identify and prioritize opportunities and can help frame the overarching story of a project, most often in a creative brief/creative development process. Ultimately, the job of the Strategy Director is to ensure that the team is set up to deliver not only solutions, but also insight that helps clients make decisions about their businesses.

Responsibilities

Responsibilities

• Lead the strategic planning process to arrive at powerful brand ideas.
• Lead the strategic thinking on integrated campaigns.
• Create compelling consumer profiles that provide insight into consumer behaviors, attitudes, lifestyle and usage to provide meaningful insights.
• Lead Creative Brief writing.
• Provide inspiration and ideas to creative teams as they begin the creative development process; act as a partner and sounding board during the creative process.
• Plan and facilitate integrated planning sessions and workshops both internally and/or with external participants.
• Conduct in-depth scouting into cultural trends, channel opportunities, competitive activity and distill into actionable implications and recommendations.
• Experience in digital strategy including social strategy.
• Build excellent relationships with creatives and agency partners.
• Be familiar with widely used and emerging insight tools and media technology, channels and terminology.
• Play an active role in building the Strategy practice at Publicis by demonstrating the value planning brings to any project for any client, by bringing forward new approaches and ideas, by participating in regular team training sessions.

Qualifications

The Director role is an inspirational leader, connecting the team to Publicis’ overall strategic processes to drive powerful brand building and best-in-class creative. This is a high visibility role, which requires outstanding influential, collaboration and communication skills:

• 8-10+ years of strategic planning experience with a proven track record of transformational, modern marketing work that has grown clients’ business.
• At least 2+ years at the Director level within an ad agency environment
• Deep integrated planning experience with emphasis on story telling
• Strong reputation for relationships with creative and account leaders and/or teams; is a creative thinker, passionate about ideas.
• Can design and facilitate large workshop activities to engage the client team in a creative problem-solving process.
• Has expertise in multiple business strategy tools, frameworks and methods.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills.
• You’re as passionate about the world outside our walls as you are within them.

Additional information

Publicis Canada is committed to building a diverse workforce representative of our community. We encourage and are pleased to consider all qualified candidates, without regard to race, colour, citizenship, religion, sex, marital / family status, sexual orientation, gender identity, aboriginal status, age, disability or persons who may require an accommodation, to apply. If you require a specific accommodation please contact Human Resources.