Media Director

The Many; Santa Monica (CA); Hybrid; USD 145,000 - 160,000; Full time

Job summary

The Many in Santa Monica is seeking a seasoned Media Director to lead client campaigns with strategic thinking and data-driven insights. You will craft sophisticated media strategies, build strong client relationships, and drive growth across digital and traditional channels.

As a leader, you will mentor staff, oversee cross-functional teams, and oversee new business initiatives while maintaining a high-performance culture in a fast-paced agency environment.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of media planning and buying experience in a managerial role.
• Strong leadership and client management capabilities.
• Advanced negotiation and strategic thinking skills.
• Proven ability to lead cross-functional teams and drive revenue growth.

Responsibilities

• Become an expert on client business, targets, and competitors.
• Build strong client relationships to align planning with goals.
• Design data-driven media strategies and campaigns.
• Oversee planning, execution, and stewardship of campaigns.
• Lead new business efforts and mentor team members.
• Coordinate with Strategy, Brand, and Creative teams for integrated output.
• Develop measurement frameworks and provide actionable performance insights.
• Stay ahead of industry trends and technologies affecting clients.

Skills

Media planning

Media buying

Client management

Negotiation

Strategic thinking

Leadership

Cross-functional collaboration

Communication

Mentoring

Team leadership

Tools

MRI

YouGov

Pathmatics

Kantar

DCM

IAS

Job description

Since its founding in 2009, The Many has combined technology, creativity and empathy to make stuff consumers actively seek, engage and share.

It has resulted in loads of integrated campaigns and award-winning work for social and digital, long-form and creator content, and activations.

The secret sauce: we harness the power of participation. Because if you look around you’ll notice that brands are no longer built in isolation, they’re built in participation with the many.

We are looking for candidates who are strategic, innovative, and a strong leader, who settle for nothing less than excellent work. Our ideal team member is highly collaborative, enjoys creative thinking, can make sense out of ambiguity, and is hungry to lead projects and campaigns for our clients. As a leader at The Many, we look for those who are quick to adapt and keep the team motivated in the face of a constantly changing environment. We’re looking for problem solvers, who have high EQ with all communications both inside the agency and with clients. You will not only partner with our Digital and Analytics teams, but also cross-functionally with our Brand, PM, Strategy, and Creative teams to ensure strategic and tactical integrity across deliverables. Media Directors are responsible for nurturing our existing clients, driving aggressive growth via new business acquisition, and supporting that growth by building a highly functioning team. As an extension of senior leadership, this is a pivotal role that shapes our media product as part of our Connections department that fosters and enforces integrated strategic thinking across the agency.

What this role is responsible for:

• Become an expert in your clients’ business, have a deep understanding of the target, category, and clients’ competitors
• Build and foster strong relationships with key clients, with a deep understanding of their needs and expectations to ensure planning and executions align with client goals, expectations, and nuances
• Design and champion innovative, sophisticated, and data-driven media strategies and campaigns that deliver against the client’s goals and drive unique value for our clients
• Develop and manage connections and measurement frameworks which steer integrated campaign development and execution, and act as a source of truth for performance analysis
• Proactively provide clients with thought leadership on best practices, media principles, and industry at large, as well as brainstorm and offer integrated approaches to achieving client goals
• Oversee the planning, execution, management, and stewardship of client campaigns, ensuring strategic and tactical rigor, as well as precision and accuracy
• Effectively lead multiple projects and initiatives simultaneously; anticipate, troubleshoot, and mitigate risks, as well as ensure effective communication across all workstreams
• Partner with Digital and Analytics counterparts to oversee the analysis of media, brand, and business performance to produce ongoing reporting deliverables, ensuring reports are insightful and actionable
• Take leading role in new business activity as required, crafting elevated storylines and integrated strategic perspectives that help bring in new revenue for the agency
• Lead Media department functions such as investigating and recommending new media technology and tools, proposing ways to streamline processes and procedures, and designing staff structure
• Effectively manage cross-functional initiatives and relationships in close partnership with other department leads and champion cross-team sharing
• Act as an agency resource and leader on the latest news and technologies that affect our industry and clients, sharing cross functionally to foster collaboration and thoughtful integrated outputs
• Responsible for recruiting and retaining top talent, growing, leading, motivating, and mentoring the team to deliver on client and agency goals
• Create an inspiring and forward-thinking culture within the media team and agency at large, that promotes individual development, career growth, job satisfaction, and team and agency participation
• Develop and maintain strong vendor relationships across US marketplaces to cultivate integrated marketing platforms and identify opportunities and solutions for client initiatives and challenges

What we need from you:

• 8+ years of media planning and buying experience required in a managerial capacity
• A deep understanding and natural curiosity of marketing at large, beyond Media, and eagerness to continue learning and evolving
• Remarkable media skills overall – strategic thinking, innovative ideas and techniques, stellar negotiating skills, actionable and insightful analysis
• Visionary thinking and the ability to anticipate future media trends and adapt strategies accordingly to stay ahead of the competition
• Planning, execution, and technical expertise across offline and digital media channels and platforms, with a passion for emerging media and cultural trends
• Superior client service experience with proven ability to gain clients’ trust quickly
• Demonstrated client management and consultative selling skills, as well as the ability to interact with all levels of management, including the executive level, to advocate and influence in support of a vision and direction
• Superb communication, presenting, and writing skills, with a knack for sharing complicated ideas in a simple, understandable, yet elevated way
• Exceptional organization skills with the ability to oversee multiple projects, deadlines, and direct reports effectively
• Strong demonstrated critical-thinking and problem-solving skills – navigating effectively through difficult issues, and builds required consensus to drive workstreams forward and achieve desired results
• An entrepreneurial spirit, desire to "change the game", self-starter mentality, and out-of-the-box thinking
• The ability to think on your feet and manage dynamic situations and environments
• Proven track record of leading teams with a focus on fostering a positive and high-performance culture
• A team-oriented mindset, and willingness to roll up your sleeves and get your hands dirty, no matter the project
• An approachable attitude, that fosters collaboration across the agency and positions you as a coach and mentor junior talent
• Strong relationships and reputation within the media vendor community
• Expertise in Microsoft Office and/or Google suites, including the creation and use of pivot tables
• Expertise in third party research tools: MRI, YouGov, Pathmatics, Kantar
• Expertise in third-party ad server and ad verifications (DCM and IAS Preferred)
• Open to working in-office three days a week

Other things we’d like to see:

• Integrated experience working cross-functionally with Strategy, Brand, and/or Creative departments
• Experience with building and shaping processes
• Experience with leading or contributing to new business pitches, and demonstrated success in winning new clients

Our salary range for this opportunity is $145,000.00 to $160,000.00 annually. There are several factors taken into consideration in determining base salary, including but not limited to: job-related qualifications, skills, education and experience, as well as job location and the value of other elements of an employee’s total compensation package (i.e. benefits, retirement plan employer match, etc.).