Senior Account Director

M&C Saatchi Group; London; On-site; GBP 45,000 - 85,000; Full time

Job summary

An established industry player is on the lookout for a Senior Account Director to join their vibrant lifestyle team. This role offers a fantastic opportunity to leverage your expertise in Consumer lifestyle PR while collaborating with renowned brands. You will lead client strategies, drive creative campaigns, and inspire your team to achieve excellence. If you're passionate about cultural trends and possess a strong network in media and influencers, this position is ideal for you. Join a dynamic agency that values creativity, collaboration, and professional growth, and make a significant impact in the world of lifestyle communications.

Benefits

Private healthcare

Private dental

Employer contributory pension

Life assurance

Income protection

Subsidized gym membership

Inclusive bank holidays

Mental Health First Aiders

Cycle to Work Scheme

Mentoring Collective

Qualifications

• Experience in Consumer lifestyle PR and social media strategy.
• Strong client management and project management skills.

Responsibilities

• Lead client business and ensure high-quality work meets strategic objectives.
• Oversee campaign execution and manage team performance.

Skills

Consumer lifestyle PR

Social media strategy

Creative skills

Client management

Project management

Financial management

Cultural insights

Education

Bachelor's degree in Marketing or related field

Tools

Cision

Gorkana

DMS

CreatorIQ

Job description

SENIOR ACCOUNT DIRECTOR

We are looking to hire a new Senior Account Director to join our growing lifestyle team in Fabric. You’ll be experienced across Consumer lifestyle PR, social and lifestyle big brands with a collaborative and creative mindset and an eye on culture. This is a great opportunity for someone who wants to flex their Consumer lifestyle PR experience whilst working across some truly exciting big brands.

ABOUT US

About M&C Saatchi Sport and Entertainment
This year marks twenty years of M&C Saatchi Sport and Entertainment - THE passions agency. For two decades the agency has been connecting brands to consumers through the things people love, making them culturally relevant through passions.

The agency’s clients include, adidas, Amstel, Ballantine’s, Barclaycard, Barclays, Dreams, Google, Heineken, Howden, Jameson, Kia, Lego, Lynx, Malibu, Red Bull, Virgin Media O2 and WHOOP.

With offices in London, Amsterdam, Berlin, Sydney, New York and Johannesburg, the team deliver the agency’s core disciplines across sport, entertainment and lifestyle, including sponsorship consultancy, rights amplification, PR, branded content creation & experiential production.

At M&C Saatchi Fabric

M&C Saatchi Fabric are a creative comms agency working with some of the world’s biggest brands, developing campaigns that are at the cutting edge of culture. Clients include adidas, The LEGO Group, Lynx and Bowers & Wilkins.

About the Role

As a Senior Account Director on the FABRIC team, you are responsible for leading client business, ensuring that all work is completed to the highest possible standard and achieves the client’s strategic objectives, on time and within budget.

Responsible for earned media strategy and output spanning PR, Comms, Social, Influencer/Talent and Activation, you will be an adaptable and experienced leader that can demonstrate knowledge and experience across a breadth of earned media disciplines.

You will play a key role in the wider agency business and have commercial awareness, an entrepreneurial spirit, and an understanding of our business and financial objectives.

You will be a brilliant team leader who inspires and nurtures those you work with.

About You

• Broad awareness of cultural trends and knowledge across youth and hype culture, music, fashion, pop culture, consumer lifestyle and fitness as well as an interest in and knowledge of those areas.
• Apply cultural insights and research to shape and inform work and creative and strategic output.
• A network of high-level relationships with key media spanning consumer lifestyle, hype, music, fashion and news (both UK and global). Luxury and consumer tech media an advantage.
• Strong network of KOLs (Influencers, Talent and Creator), and an ear to the ground on new and emerging voices/platforms.
• Impressive creative skills; confidence in presenting ideas internally and to clients.
• Strategic and creative excellence in developing client campaigns from conception through to delivery across earned media disciplines.
• Assume full responsibility and accountability for your accounts.
• Exemplary client management with the skill to build close client relationships, ensuring that you are viewed as a source of sound strategic, creative and operational advice.
• Exemplary project and account management skills across multiple clients, workstreams and team members simultaneously.
• Confidence generating evaluation reports, using and interpreting industry tracking/monitoring tools (Cision, Gorkana, DMS, CreatorIQ etc.) to inform results.
• Inspire, nurture and oversee other members in your team.
• Aptitude for identifying and converting new business opportunities.
• Demonstrate financial excellence and budgeting skills.
• An entrepreneurial spirit, with the ability to flex to different clients, opportunities and marketing disciplines.

What You'll Bring

Responsibilities

Marketing and earned media

• Ensure that successful earned output is at the heart of all client work.
• Display a sophisticated understanding of how PR enables clients to achieve their business objectives and provide competent counsel against their commercial deliverables.

Media Contacts & Management

• Have a strong knowledge of media and the earned landscape in order to offer your team and client council on the media landscape and fully understand media’s needs and requirements.
• Maintain strong relationships with key high-level media across all relevant clients.
• Manage your team to ensure they are delivering rich editorial opportunities.
• Aware of all client coverage and articles of interest, as informed by more junior members of the team.
• Aware of any coverage issues your team may face ahead of it becoming an issue with your client and deliver effective solutions.

Social Media

• Define relevant client strategy based on brief and objectives.
• Demonstrate a thorough understanding of the social media / digital media landscape – in relation to your client’s digital presence and objectives.
• Incorporate relevant digital mechanics / strategy into client responses.
• Help to manage the cross-agency structure (where relevant) understanding where we fit into it from a digital perspective.
• Develop an understanding of emerging technology and its potential uses in marketing. Use these insights to sell new ideas to the client.
• Provide strategic counsel to the client based on their social objectives and competitor activity.
• Proof and approve content for social media created by your team.
• Proof and approve social media reports and ensure insights and recommendations identified fit with the broader strategy.

Campaign Execution

• Oversee the planning and implementation of client campaigns and activations.
• Work to ensure that activation is delivered to an extremely high standard, on time and within budget.
• Ensure success and a results-driven approach when implementing all campaigns.
• Aware of any financial or logistical issues before they become an issue for the client and provide relevant solutions.
• Oversee and lead the generation of impressive Evaluation and Wrap reports.

Account Administration

• Oversee AMs and AEs delivery of day-to-day account tasks, ensuring that all client-facing work is completed to deadline and is of an appropriate standard.
• Lead meetings (both internal and client facing) ensuring that they are constructive and efficient.

Team Leadership and Development

• An approachable source of knowledge for your team members, providing sound advice and direction.
• Viewed by team members as a dynamic and reliable AD.
• Lead by example.

Client Services

• Show genuine interest in your client’s business.
• Ensure that the team respond promptly to client requests and that general client-facing communication and processes are maintained to a high level.
• Work with other SADs and ADs to plan resource requirements on a rolling monthly basis.

Financial Management

• Understanding of and compliance with clients’ and agency finance processes.
• Effective management of client budgets; forecasting, reporting and reconciliation.
• Proficient in estimation of campaign fees and expenses; signing off invoices; budget monitoring; management of job bags; tracking PO’s etc.

WHAT WE VALUE MOST:

OUR VALUES

Excellence – We have high standards. It’s not about perfection but striving for the best. Going the extra mile(s) to achieve culture defining work.

Progressiveness – We are in tune with the ever-evolving passions landscape. We always work with integrity and authentically.

Collaboration – We focus on the collective rather than the individual. We bring brilliant minds together to interrogate work, finding unconventional and creatively rich storytelling.

Resilience – We work fast and furiously, responding to the cadence of culture, staying ahead of the curve. We trust our guts. We’re passionate not precious. We’re critical thinkers.

Curiosity – We make no assumption and challenge convention.

WHAT WE OFFER:

We offer a competitive salary and benefits package which includes private healthcare, private dental, employer contributory pension, life assurance and income protection. We also offer a host of benefits that support wellbeing including subsided gym membership, ‘inclusive bank holidays’, Mental Health First Aiders, Cycle to Work Scheme, HealthHero , Mentoring Collective, to name a few.

Our learning and development initiatives run throughout the year offering you the chance to upskill and develop your career in a supportive environment.

Whilst our commitment to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion sees us offer learning opportunities around DE&I, targeted mentoring programmes and the opportunity to participate in a number of active Employee Led Networks and associated events. Finally, this role will be supported with all the necessary personal development required to set someone up for success.

M&C Saatchi Group is an Equal Opportunity Employer which does not discriminate, celebrates diversity and bases all hiring and promotion decisions solely on talent and capability, without regard for any personal characteristics.

All employee information is kept confidential according to General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).