Associate Strategy Director

Publicis Groupe; Mumbai; On-site; INR 2,400,000 - 4,200,000; Full time

Job summary

Publicis Production India, part of Publicis Groupe, seeks a strategist who can weave human behavior insights into scalable systems across Creative, Media, Data, Technology and Production.

You will work inside Prodigious India’s Intelligent Creativity practice, shaping brand platforms, dynamic content logic, and AI-driven strategies that connect insight to execution at scale.

Qualifications

• Experience interpreting human behaviour to identify opportunities.
• Ability to translate insights into strategic opportunities.
• Experience working across Creative, Media, Data, Technology and Production teams.

Responsibilities

• Look beyond audience labels to surface repeated behaviours and cultural shifts.
• Identify meaningful patterns in how people behave, consume, participate, choose and respond.
• Turn cultural and behavioural observations into clear strategic opportunities.
• Define the strategic problem clearly and resolve conflicting interpretations.
• Create strategic systems that can be used by multiple teams across disciplines.
• Lead complex strategic assignments and present confidently to senior clients and leadership.

Skills

Human behaviour

Strategic thinking

Cross-disciplinary collaboration

AI in strategy

Job description

Business: Publicis Production India | Publicis Groupe

Reporting to: Head – Strategy & Creative

This Is Not a Conventional Planning Role

We are not looking for someone whose work ends with an audience definition, a communications brief or a strategy presentation.

We are looking for a strategist who can understand how people actually behave, identify where brands can become meaningfully relevant, and turn that understanding into systems that Creative, Media, Data, Technology and Production teams can build and deploy.

The role sits inside Prodigious India’s Intelligent Creativity practice.

That means working beyond traditional campaign planning to shape:

• brand platforms and intellectual properties,
• dynamic and modular communication systems,
• and new ways of using AI to improve both thinking and execution.

You will work across disciplines rather than inside a single strategic lane.

One day, you may be interrogating an audience assumption with a Data team.

The next, you may be helping Creative teams turn a behavioural tension into a scalable content system.

You may then work with Media, Product and Production teams to determine how that system changes across signals, contexts, formats and platforms.

The job is not to add a strategy layer to other people’s work.

It is to create the strategic logic that helps different teams work as one connected system.

What You Will Do:

Look beyond broad audience labels and surface-level trends to understand the repeated behaviours, tensions, routines and cultural shifts that create real opportunities for brands.

You will:

• identify meaningful patterns in how people behave, consume, participate, choose and respond;
• separate durable behaviour from temporary noise;
• turn cultural and behavioural observations into clear strategic opportunities;
• challenge generic audience definitions and convenient category assumptions;
• and identify where a brand has the right to participate, rather than simply where attention exists.

Build Strategic Systems:

Translate insight into structures that can actually be used by teams.

This may include:

• audience and behavioural frameworks;
• brand platforms and intellectual properties;
• communication territories;
• dynamic content logic;
• modular messaging systems;
• and strategic playbooks that connect insight to execution.

The expectation is not only to develop a compelling direction.

It is to make that direction usable, scalable and clear enough for multiple disciplines to act on.

Connect Data With Human Meaning:

Work closely with Media, Data, Analytics and Research teams to turn signals into strategic understanding.

You will use:

• media and performance data,
• platform signals,
• research,
• and cultural observation.

But data is not the strategy.

Your job is to interpret what the signals suggest about behaviour, motivation, friction and opportunity and identify what they allow the brand to do differently.

Help define how Publicis Production uses AI to build more adaptive, relevant and scalable content systems.

This includes exploring:

• AI-assisted strategic development;
• agentic workflows;
• dynamic creative systems;
• signal-led content variation;
• automation across content operations;
• and new models that connect strategy, creativity and production.

We are not looking for someone who merely follows AI developments.

We are looking for someone who can ask better questions of the technology, understand where it genuinely improves the work, and resist using it where it only creates speed without intelligence.

Make Different Disciplines Work Together:

This role works across Creative, Media, Data, Social, Technology, Product, Production and Client Leadership.

You will not simply coordinate these teams.

You will help create the shared logic that connects their decisions.

That means:

• defining the strategic problem clearly;
• resolving conflicting interpretations;
• ensuring data inform creativity without flattening it;
• helping creative ideas survive operational reality;
• and making sure execution remains connected to the original human opportunity.

Lead the Strategic Conversation:

You will be a senior voice within the practice and a close strategic partner to the VP – Creative & Strategy.

You will be expected to:

• lead complex strategic assignments;
• present confidently to senior clients and internal leadership;
• challenge assumptions without creating theatre;
• bring clarity when multiple teams see the problem differently;
• guide and raise the quality of other strategists;
• and represent the strategic practice independently when required.

Authority in this role will not come from having the most frameworks in the room.

It will come from seeing the problem clearly, making strong distinctions and helping everyone move forward.

The Kind of Strategist We Are Looking For:

You are likely to have 6–8 years of experience across one or more of the following:

• brand strategy,
• or integrated marketing.

Your exact background matters less than the way you think.

You should be someone who:

• starts with human behaviour, not demographic shorthand;
• can move comfortably between culture, data, creativity and execution;
• sees patterns without forcing everything into a framework;
• can simplify complexity without making the thinking simplistic;
• understands that a trend is not automatically an opportunity;
• is curious about AI but not seduced by novelty;
• can turn abstract thinking into practical systems;
• can write and present with clarity;
• is comfortable challenging senior stakeholders;
• and enjoys working with people who approach the same problem from very different disciplines.

You should also have a strong understanding of:

• digital and platform behaviour;
• content and creator ecosystems;
• internet and participatory culture;
• audience and media data;
• performance signals;
• strategic storytelling;
• and the realities of producing content at scale.

Why This Role Is Different

Most strategy roles operate within a defined part of the process.

This one is designed to move across it.

You will have the opportunity to influence:

• how audiences are understood;
• how behavioural opportunities are identified;
• how content systems are designed;
• how data and creativity work together;
• how AI changes strategic and creative development;
• and how ideas move from strategic thinking into repeatable execution.

You will be helping build the operating model for Intelligent Creativity at Publicis Production India, not simply delivering work inside an existing one.

That requires curiosity.

It also requires judgement.

Because the goal is not to produce more content, more frameworks or more technology.

It is to create more relevant thinking and make it work at scale.