Strategy Manager

Publicis Groupe Holdings B.V; Toronto; On-site; CAD 70,000 - 80,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Work Your World program (work from any

Extended long weekends with an extra H

Job summary

Starcom in Toronto seeks an experienced strategy professional to lead cultural and media planning for major brands. You will combine consumer insights, cultural intelligence, and multi‑platform strategies to shape brand experiences across paid, earned, owned, and shared media.

The role requires strong client collaboration, global perspective, and fluency in English (French a bonus). Expect a dynamic, fast‑moving environment with opportunities for growth and mobility within Publicis Groupe.

Qualifications

• Bachelor-level degree in a relevant field is required.
• Significant experience in communications planning, brand strategy, or cultural strategy.
• Fluency in English; French is a bonus.

Responsibilities

• Lead holistic connections planning for major brands and translate objectives into integrated strategies.
• Leverage audience insights and social listening tools to identify behaviors.
• Define jobs to be done and map channel roles across paid, earned, owned, and shared media.
• Lead inter-agency collaborations, briefs, workshops, and client presentations.
• Act as trusted advisor to clients and internal planning teams on media strategy and cultural participation.
• Monitor culture across travel, entertainment, gaming, fashion, and art to find authentic integration opportunities.
• Educate teams on emerging shifts in behavior, platform dynamics, and creator ecosystems.
• Utilize AI tools to refine insights and generate ideas.
• Generate big activation ideas and drive buy-in with strategic storytelling.
• Collaborate with vendor and partner agencies to bring plans to life.
• Support new business pitches with cultural insights and planning thinking.

Skills

Audience intelligence

Cultural strategy

Client collaboration

Media planning

Data-driven insights

Education

Degree in Business, Marketing, Communications, Cultural Studies, Media Studies or related field

Tools

Vividata

GWI

ComScore

Google Trends

Pinterest

Job description

Company description

With a history that dates back over 80 years, Starcom is a global communications planning and media leader. We are an agency still grounded in our founding principle that people are at center of all we do. Each day, we apply this belief to harness the transformative power of data and technology to inspire and move people and business forward. With more than 7,000 employees in over 100 offices around the world, Starcom partners with the world's leading marketers and brands.

Within Canada, Starcom is a part of Publicis Media within Publicis Groupe, one of the world’s leading communications groups. Our team spans across our Windsor, Toronto and Montreal offices. We truly love the world of Media and Advertising. We see the planning and buying process as art. However, it is an art that is always best when backed by the science of empirical data.

You will be joining a well recognised agency with credentials:

• Great Places to Work certified three years in a row
• Only communications company to be ranked in LinkedIn’s Top 25 Great Places to Work
• 2022 Media Agency of the Year
• 2023 Media Agency of the Year finalist

What we Offer:

• Work Your World program enabling you to experience working from anywhere in Canada or overseas for up to 6 weeks a year
• Extended long weekends throughout the year with an additional day off each long weekend
• Wellness & Tech benefits to support what's most important to you
• Birthday leave
• Extensive Learning & Development opportunities, including more than 15,000 learning programs via our online learning platform as well as a Professional Development Allowance
• Local and Global Mobility within the Publicis Groupe network

Overview

The ideal candidate is a cultural anthropologist at heart. They draw from multiple communications disciplines with equal parts planner, strategist, cultural observer, and activation architect.

You are a critical thinker, that will sit at the intersection of innovative ideas, creative considerations, consumer insights, media platforms, and real-time cultural shifts. You’ll lead the orchestration of brand architectures for one of our biggest clients, influencing integrated touchpoints across the full consumer journey, while embedding cultural intelligence into every stage of planning that follows.

The world moves fast and so do we. We deal in ambiguity, translate complex challenges and drive the narrative. Your job is to create clear, actionable direction for brands so they can show up where their audiences are, with both cultural credibility and commercial effectiveness.

We are considering this role as a natural evolution to the media strategist.There is an opportunity within this role to help shape its future, beyond the needs that exist today for our clients. We want someone to strengthen a team of leading strategists for the future, towards authentic brand integration into Canadian culture.

Responsibilities

• Lead holistic connections planning for major brands, translating marketing objectives into fully integrated, brand strategies and consumer-first media experiences.
• Leverage audience, insights and social listening tools, platform and first-party data to identify meaningful and emerging audience behaviors.
• Define jobs to done, communications tasks and map channel roles across paid, earned, owned and shared media.
• Lead inter-agency collaborations, creative briefings, workshops, brainstorms, and client presentations.
• Serve as a trusted advisor to clients and internal planning teams, providing thought leadership on both media strategy and cultural participation, including developing and writing of agency POVs
• Lead ongoing cultural monitoring across verticals like travel, entertainment, gaming, music, film, fashion, art and emerging internet subcultures and find opportunities for agency brands to authentically integrate their comms
• Serve as an internal cultural resource educating clients and internal planning teams on emerging shifts in behavior, platform dynamics, and creator ecosystems.
• Master of AI tools for the benefit of strategic refinement, analytical research, and idea generation.
• Generate big activation ideas for brands and know the importance of selling them through with a balance of strategy and excitement
• Collaborate closely with vendor, internal and external partner agencies to bring experience plans to life.
• Support new business pitches with cutting-edge cultural insights and experience planning thinking.

Qualifications

• Degree in Business, Marketing, Communications, Cultural Studies, Media Studies or related field in cultural pillars of gaming, entertainment (film / tv), fashion, wellness, or the creator community
• 6-8+ years of experience in Communications Planning, Brand Strategy, Media Strategy, or Cultural Strategy roles
• Significant hands‑on experience with audience and cultural intelligence tools: eg. Vividata, GWI, ComScore,Google Trends, Pinterest, etc.
• Strong grasp of data-driven media planning, audience targeting, and cross-channel media strategy
• Deep understanding of cultural trends, internet communities, creator ecosystems, and modern media consumption behaviors
• Experience working directly with clients, media planners, creative teams, and platform partners
• Fully fluent in English; French fluency a bonus

Additional information

Salary

Transparency matters to us. The salary range for this position is $70,000 - $80,000per year. Actual compensation within this range will be based on a variety of factors, including relevant experience, knowledge, skills, and applicable certifications. This range reflects what we reasonably expect to offer based on current market data.

AI USE

We use artificial intelligence (AI) tools to support parts of our hiring process, such as reviewing applications or analyzing resumes. These tools assist our recruitment team but never replace human decision‑making. We believe in a human‑first approach, where your experience and potential are recognized by people.

Starcom is an equal opportunity employer with a strong commitment to diversity and inclusion. We create and nurture a vibrant work environment that celebrates, values and leverages all aspects of diversity and inclusiveness, attracts world‑class talent and serves as the industry benchmark for best practices.We encourage applications from all qualified individuals and will provide appropriate accommodation for candidates with disabilities or accessibility needs throughout the recruitment process, upon request. Please contact our recruiter for any questions, accommodations or specific requests.We thankall candidates for their interest in Starcom however, only those candidatesselected for an interview will be contacted.