Real-Time Culture & Insights Lead

Monks; East Lindsey; On-site; GBP 70,000 - 110,000; Full time

Job summary

Monks is seeking a Senior Real-Time Culture & Insights Strategist to lead detection of real-time cultural trends and translate insights into creative direction. You will work closely with the Director to ensure fast integration of insights into campaigns and brand strategy.

The ideal candidate blends cultural acumen with data-driven storytelling, guiding workshops, playbooks, and cross-functional teams to maximise engagement and ROI across paid and organic campaigns.

Qualifications

• 5–7 years of experience in trend analysis, research, social strategy, or brand strategy within agency, media, or tech environments.
• Strong knowledge of cultural monitoring methodologies, brand building principles, and trend forecasting frameworks.
• Demonstrated expertise in strategic planning, playbook creation, and social strategy.
• Ability to merge qualitative and quantitative data from multiple sources into clear, compelling strategic narratives.
• Intermediate to advanced English proficiency (written and spoken).
• Exceptional communication, presentation, and storytelling skills.

Responsibilities

• Territories, Cultures & Trend Detection: Continuously monitor platforms and media to identify emerging trends, subcultures, and real-time conversation opportunities.
• Social Strategy & Brand Building: Develop comprehensive social strategies and brand-building frameworks that align with long-term positioning and real-time cultural moments.
• Strategic Planning & Playbooks: Lead strategic planning processes and create actionable playbooks and guidelines that feed directly into creative ideation and campaign execution.
• Workshops & Facilitation: Plan and facilitate collaborative workshops with internal teams and clients to extract key insights, align goals, and foster creative alignment.
• Creative Approach & Ideation: Bring a strong creative strategy approach to bridge data, insights, and storytelling into high-impact visual and narrative concepts.
• Paid Media & Campaign Optimization: Collaborate on paid media strategy, analyzing cultural performance within active campaigns to recommend real-time optimizations for maximum engagement and ROI.
• Cross-Functional Collaboration: Partner closely with creative, data, media, and account teams to ensure contextual and strategic relevance across all touchpoints.

Skills

Social strategy

Cultural monitoring

Trend forecasting

Strategic storytelling

Workshop facilitation

Communication skills

Tools

Brandwatch

Talkwalker

Sprinklr

NetBase Quid

Job description

Monks is seeking a Senior Real-Time Culture & Insights Strategist to lead detection of real-time cultural trends and translate insights into creative direction. You will work closely with the Director to ensure fast integration of insights into campaigns and brand strategy.

The ideal candidate blends cultural acumen with data-driven storytelling, guiding workshops, playbooks, and cross-functional teams to maximise engagement and ROI across paid and organic campaigns.