Senior Vice President, Audience Strategy

Publicis Groupe; New York (NY); On-site; USD 180,000 - 300,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical coverage

Dental and vision benefits

401K plan

Parental leave and family care

Job summary

Publicis Groupe is seeking a Senior Vice President, Audience Insights & Strategy to lead the development of audience strategies that connect business challenges to growth opportunities across paid, earned, shared, and owned channels.

The ideal leader synthesizes identity-based data, first- and third-party research, cultural insights, and category context to define audiences, consumer journeys, and strategic narratives for senior clients and cross-functional teams.

Qualifications

• 15+ years of experience in audience strategy or related fields with progressive leadership.
• Proven ability to synthesize research into insights and strategic narratives.
• Strong knowledge of segmentation, purchase drivers, and identity-based data.
• Experience with paid, earned, shared, and owned channels and omnichannel campaigns.
• Excellent business writing, storytelling, and client-facing communication.
• Ability to guide senior clients and lead cross-functional teams.

Responsibilities

• Lead audience strategy for Lowe’s retail media collaboration with Publicis teams.
• Coordinate cross-functional teams across Planning, Analytics, and Creative.
• Translate business challenges into audience questions and growth opportunities.
• Develop and validate growth-audience strategies aligned with client objectives.
• Partner with data, platforms, and analytics to size opportunities.
• Present findings in client workshops and executive meetings.

Skills

Audience strategy

Consumer insights

Market research

Strategic storytelling

Client consulting

Tools

Identity solutions

Audience platforms

Data clean rooms

CDPs

DSPs

Job description

Company description

Spark Foundry was built during the most transformative time in the history of advertising and marketing. We deliver everything a traditional media agency has to offer and have grown into one of the world’s most successful agencies by helping brands evolve their marketing by leveraging identity, commerce, artificial intelligence, and more to connect with people. Transformation is part of our DNA. Spark Foundry’s start-up spirit delivers high-touch approaches and a never-ending desire to challenge the status quo. Combined with Publicis Media’s powerhouse soul leveraging connected data assets, advanced AI applications, and investment clout, we “Bring HEAT to Brands.” No other agency possesses the expertise that we do to address today’s most pressing challenges to drive business transformation through media.

Overview

Audience Strategy turns connected data and research into a deep understanding of people and the growth opportunities they represent. The Senior Vice President, Audience Insights & Strategy leads the development of audience strategies that solve client business challenges and inspire connected experiences across paid, earned, shared, and owned channels.

This leader brings together identity-based data, first-party and third-party research, behavioral signals, cultural intelligence, social communities, and category context to identify growth audiences, uncover motivations and purchase drivers, and define how brands can influence behavior.

The ideal candidate is an accomplished strategist, investigator, and storyteller who can turn disparate information into a clear point of view, guide senior clients, and collaborate across Integrated Design, Planning, Content, Analytics, Audience Data & Platforms, Investment, Commerce, and creative partners

Responsibilities

• Lead this client in evolving its audience capabilities, partnering with the newly-identified audience lead to establish a best-in-class approach to audience strategy - be an “audience boss”
• Act as connection point between Lowe’s Enterprise and retail media network audience teams at Publicis, ensuring audience strategies are connected and additive versus duplicative. The ideal candidate will lead audience teams on both sides of the business.
• Support Lowe’s vision to unify the customer experience end to end, move to systems thinking and ensure Lowe’s is delivering interconnected customer journeys and personalization (not just channel level execution)
• Partner with clients and agency leaders to translate business challenges into clear audience questions, hypotheses, and growth opportunities.
• Lead the development and validation of growth-audience strategies grounded in client objectives, category dynamics, purchase behavior, and cultural context.
• Use first-principles thinking to challenge assumptions, frame complex problems, and develop informed, defensible points of view.
• Identify and prioritize growth audiences based on the size and nature of the opportunity, not simply reach or targeting availability.
• Define the strategic rationale for which audiences matter, why they matter, and how their behavior can be influenced.

Audience Insight & Understanding

• Synthesize quantitative and qualitative evidence to uncover audience motivations, mindsets, tensions, beliefs, needs, and behavioral drivers.
• Connect identity-based data, first-party data, syndicated research, social and search signals, primary research, cultural analysis, and category intelligence into cohesive audience narratives.
• Distinguish information from insight by clearly articulating meaning, implication, and recommended action.
• Lead the development of audience profiles, purchase frameworks, consumer journeys, social-community perspectives, and points of view on influence.
• Identify research gaps and recommend appropriate qualitative or quantitative research when existing evidence is insufficient.

PESO & Experience Application

• Translate audience insights into clear implications for communications, content, creative, commerce, media, and experience design.
• Partner with Integrated Design to convert audience understanding into connected PESO opportunities, experience direction, and ideation inputs.
• Actively participate in cross-functional ideation and ensure ideas remain grounded in the audience strategy.
• Maintain the audience through line from the business challenge through planning, activation, measurement, and learning.

Data, Platforms, & Measurement Partnership

• Partner with Audience Data & Platforms, Analytics, and Data Science to size and validate opportunities, connect recommendations to growth models, and translate strategic audience definitions into addressable segments.
• Maintain ownership of the audience strategy, insight narrative, and strategic implications while technical partners lead audience builds, platform enablement, activation operations, tracking, and QA.
• Understand the capabilities, limitations, and appropriate use cases of audience data, identity, research, and activation tools well enough to guide recommendations and explain them in clear language.
• Work with Planning, Investment, Analytics, and Data & Platforms to assess audience-level performance and apply learning to future audience strategy.
• Partner with Lowe’s internal audience team to ensure audiences are created and pushed to Publicis
• Work closely with Epsilon on all aspects of audience/data, particularly in driving clean room utilization

Client, Agency, & Commercial Leadership

• Build trusted relationships with senior clients and become a valued partner in audience-led business and marketing decisions.
• Lead client presentations, workshops, and working sessions that make complex evidence accessible, actionable, and inspiring.
• Identify opportunities to expand Audience Strategy engagements and contribute audience strategy to new-business pitches.
• Provide thought leadership on people, culture, audience growth, research, identity, and the evolving marketing landscape.
• Connect the right agency disciplines and partners at key points in the Audience Strategy 2.0 process to strengthen the work and build shared ownership.

Talent & Practice Leadership

• Build, coach, and develop high-performing audience strategists across levels.
• Set a high standard for strategic quality, audience insight, narrative development, and client readiness.
• Drive consistent adoption of the Audience Strategy 2.0 framework, core deliverables, templates, and ways of working.
• Identify capability gaps and lead training, recruitment, onboarding, and succession planning.
• Create a culture of curiosity, collaboration, constructive challenge, continuous learning, and accountability

Qualifications

Required Experience & Capabilities

• 15+ years of experience in audience strategy, consumer insights, communications strategy, market research, media strategy, or a related discipline, with progressive leadership responsibility.
• Demonstrated success developing audience strategies that connect a business challenge to audience opportunity, behavioral insight, and marketing action.
• Expert ability to synthesize quantitative and qualitative research into audience insights, implications, and a compelling strategic narrative.
• Strong knowledge of consumer-research methods, including syndicated research, primary research, U&A studies, brand trackers, qualitative research, and cultural analysis.
• Deep understanding of segmentation, purchase drivers, consumer behavior, journey development, and the role of identity-based and first-party data.
• Strong understanding of paid, earned, shared, and owned channels and how audience insight informs their roles within a connected experience.
• Exceptional business writing, storytelling, presentation, workshop facilitation, and senior-client consulting skills.
• Demonstrated ability to formulate and defend a clear point of view in complex or ambiguous situations.
• Strong leadership and team-management skills, with experience developing talent and overseeing multiple workstreams.
• Business acumen, intellectual curiosity, cultural literacy, empathy, pattern recognition, and a collaborative leadership style.

Preferred Experience

• Experience with social listening, community intelligence, creator ecosystems, behavioral economics, or cultural research.
• Retail experience preferred, including experience working with a retail media network
• Working knowledge of identity solutions, audience platforms, data clean rooms, CDPs, DSPs, and audience measurement, with the ability to partner effectively with technical specialists.
• Experience developing audience strategy across multiple categories, markets, or global teams.
• Experience contributing to new-business growth, capability development, or strategic consulting engagements
• Curious about people and businesses, with the instinct to investigate beyond the obvious.
• Comfortable making intelligent leaps while remaining grounded in evidence.
• A strategic synthesizer who connects signals rather than listing facts.
• A clear, concise storyteller who can simplify complexity without losing nuance.
  A generous collaborator and coach who raises the quality of the work and the people around them.
• Ability to drive change

Additional information

Our Publicis Groupe motto “Viva La Différence” means we’re better together, and we believe that our differences make us stronger. It means we honor and celebrate all identities, across all facets of intersectionality, and it underpins all that we do as an organization. We are focused on fostering belonging and creating equitable & inclusive experiences for all talent.

Publicis Groupe provides robust and inclusive benefit programs and policies to support the evolving and diverse needs of our talent and enable every person to grow and thrive. Our benefits package includes medical coverage, dental, vision, disability, 401K, as well as parental and family care leave, family forming assistance, tuition reimbursement, and flexible time off.

If you require accommodation or assistance with the application or onboarding process specifically, please contact [e-mail].

All your information will be kept confidential according to EEO guidelines.

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Compensation Range

USD $180,215.00 - USD $299,637.00/Annually. This is the pay range the Company believes it will pay for this position at the time of this posting. This role may also be eligible for bonus or incentive compensation. Consistent with applicable law, compensation will be determined based on the skills, qualifications, and experience of the applicant along with the requirements of the position, and the Company reserves the right to modify this pay range at any time. Temporary roles may be eligible to participate in our freelancer/temporary employee medical plan through a third-party benefits administration system once certain criteria have been met. For regular roles, the Company will offer medical coverage, dental, vision, disability, 401k, and paid time off. The Company anticipates the application deadline for this job posting will be 12/11/2026.