Senior Strategist, LIONS Advisory

Informa PLC; London; Hybrid; GBP 50,000 - 75,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading company in the marketing sector is seeking a strategic advisor to work with top brands. This role involves conducting qualitative research, developing insights, and leading projects that drive creative effectiveness. The ideal candidate will have strong client management skills and a deep understanding of the marketing landscape, contributing to high-impact initiatives and community engagement.

Benefits

Freedom & flexibility

Great community

Broader impact

Career opportunity

Time out

Personal benefits

ShareMatch scheme

Strong wellbeing support

Recognition for great work

International collaboration

Qualifications

• Strong qualitative research skills including interviewing & building trust.
• High level insight and editorial skills.
• Advanced knowledge of the advertising, marketing and media ecosystem.

Responsibilities

• Leading high-value projects advising clients on creativity in marketing.
• Conducting qualitative research studies and leading senior stakeholder interviews.
• Developing insights reports and overseeing research and content.

Skills

Qualitative research

Critical analysis

Client management

Communication

Collaboration

Job description

LIONS Advisory is the Advisory arm of the LIONS business. LIONS operates across four key pillars - Events, Intelligence, Advisory and Learning. Our collective goal at LIONS is to help every business drive better business through creative marketing. Our activities encompass world renowned expertise and platforms: the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, WARC, Contagious, Effie Worldwide and Acuity Pricing.

LIONS Advisory works with ambitious CMOs to establish the Marketing function as a business growth engine by fuelling cultures of creative effectiveness with the creative marketing industry’s leading consultants. We are a 30-strong, multi-regional team working across strategy, commercial, marketing and operations, focused on delivering a world-class service to our clients. Our client list includes some of the largest, most influential and most successful marketing organisations in the world.

About LIONS, part of Informa Festivals

The LIONS Division is part of Informa Festivals, home to Informa’s experience-led events. Across five global and fast-moving markets, Informa Festivals inspires and celebrates business with events that deliver unique experiences, immersive activities, high-impact content, powerful connections and personal enrichment. Informa plc is a FTSE 100 company, listed on the London Stock Exchange.

About Informa Festivals

Informa Festivals marks an exciting new chapter in B2B events, bringing some of the world's most influential creative, technology, and business festivals together. We’re combining prestigious eventslike Cannes Lions, Black Hat, Money20/20,GDC, and London Tech Week with cutting-edge marketing intelligence platforms and advisory services to deliver unmissable experiences and insights.

Our festival-led approach reimagines traditional B2B events, creating powerful, immersive experiences that drive innovation and industry advancement. Building on decades of expertise and powered by Informa's international reach, we're shaping the next generation of business festivals.

Job Description

About Intelligence & Insight within LIONS Advisory

Within LIONS Advisory, Intelligence & Insight strategists work to build communities and generate insights for the world’s most creative brands.

Our Intelligence work sees us conduct qualitative research for individual clients and undertake studies to unpack industry trends. We also develop community initiatives to grow our relationships with Marketing and Brand leaders where we can build our understanding of this group’s priorities and needs.

Our Insight work focuses on research, analysis and developing narratives to pull out the most pertinent insights, trends and themes shaping the future direction of creative effectiveness. We share these findings via a variety of formats including thought-leadership editorial & reports, client briefings and presentations, and introductory masterclasses.

Key accountabilities

Leading high-value projects in advising clients on creativity in marketing and how it pertains to positive business outcomes such as growth. This includes:

Understanding client needs and working with commercial teams to shape proposals in line with their requirements

Conducting qualitative research studies, confidently leading 1-2-1 senior stakeholder interviews to diagnose client challenges and opportunities

Using LIONS content (including WARC, The Work, Effies, and Contagious) to research and shape key content showcasing trends and insights on creative effectiveness

Presenting content and training via workshops, presentations and masterclasses, all delivered to a high standard, on time and profitably.

Maintaining an excellent working relationship with the client, demonstrating your expertise in the area of creative effectiveness.

As part of our client advisory programmes you will take a lead role in shaping our Cannes Curated programme - a bespoke learning programme for clients at the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity. This includes shaping the offering, leading on content development and managing the delivery of the sessions, content and programmes at the Festival.

Shaping and developing marketing community programmes which enable us to build and maintain good relationships with marketers. This will include work such as building out content and presentations to feed into the CMO Growth Council and our LIONS Marketers Community

Developing insights reports, designed to generate awareness of LIONS Advisory services. Take a lead role in overseeing the research, writing and editing the content, and work with content and marketing on the publishing and awareness around them (through reports, presentations etc).

Working with senior members of the Advisory team to innovate and evolve our offering

Mentoring junior members of the team

Raising the profile of LIONS Advisory by engaging in marketing, demonstrating thought-leadership, writing articles, and speaking at events & conferences.

This list is not exhaustive and there may be other activities you are required to deliver.

Qualifications

Strong qualitative research skills including interviewing & building trust, critical analysis and an ability to synthesise key information from large, complex research studies

High level insight and editorial skills with an ability to assess trends and build out useful, relevant and thought-provoking editorial (written & presented) to deliver to clients

Advanced knowledge of the advertising, marketing and media ecosystem

A strategic thinker, empathetic listener, inspiring do-er.

Good commercial acumen with fluency in the revenue-related drivers of the business and with experience of working with commercial to develop proposals that secure projects.

Showing a strong ability to collaborate across teams and functions in order to deliver seamless solutions for clients and working to deliver multiple concurrent projects successfully.

Stand out client management and collaboration.

World class communication skills, whether writing, presenting or facilitating.

You own problems, are accountable, and bring solutions.

If you don't meet every single requirement, we'd still encourage you to apply. At LIONS, we are committed to creating a diverse, inclusive and authentic workplace, so if you are excited about this role we would still like you to apply.

Additional Information

We work hard to make sure Life at Informa is rewarding, supportive and enjoyable for everyone. Here’s some of what you can expect when you join us. But don’t just take our word for it – see what our colleagues have to sayLifeAt.Informa.com

Our benefits include:

• Freedom & flexibility: colleagues rate us highly for the flexibility and trust they receive and most of us balance time in the office with time working remotely
• Great community: a welcoming culture with in-person and online social events, our fantastic Walk the World charity day and active diversity and inclusion networks
• Broader impact: take up to four days per year to volunteer, with charity match funding available too
• Career opportunity: the opportunity to develop your career with bespoke training and learning, mentoring platforms and on-demand access to thousands of courses on LinkedIn Learning. When it’s time for the next step, we encourage and support internal job moves
• Time out: 25 days annual leave, rising to 27 days after two years, plus a birthday leave day and the chance to work from (almost!) anywhere for up to four weeks a year
• A flexible range of personal benefits to choose from, plus company funded private medical cover
• A ShareMatch scheme that allows you to become an Informa shareholder with free matching shares
• Strong wellbeing support through EAP assistance, mental health first aiders, a healthy living subsidy, access to health apps and more
• Recognition for great work, with global awards and kudos programmes
• As an international company, the chance to collaborate with teams around the world

We’re not solely focused on a checklist of skills. We champion energy and ambition and look for colleagues who will roll their sleeves up, join in and help make things happen. If it sounds like a match and you have most – although not all – of the skills and experience listed, we welcome your application.

At Informa, you'll find inclusive experiences and environments where all perspectives and backgrounds are welcomed. As part of this approach and our diversity and inclusion commitments, we are also formally an Equal Opportunities Employer. This means we base decisions on relevant qualifications and merit and do not discriminate on the basis of key characteristics and statuses, including all of those protected by law. Ask us or see our website for full information.

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