Vice President, Group Director, Account Planning

Publicis Groupe; Philadelphia (Philadelphia County); On-site; USD 129,000 - 186,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical coverage

Dental

Vision

Disability

401K

Parental leave

Family care leave

Tuition reimbursement

Flexible time off

Job summary

Digitas Health LifeBrands in Philadelphia seeks a Vice President/Group Director to lead breakthrough customer insights and translate them into big creative ideas. You will report to the SVP/Head of Planning and guide two mid-level planners, shaping marketing strategies with qualitative and quantitative methods.

We value leadership, writing and influence, with a passion for consumer truth and evolving healthcare marketing to meet dynamic consumer needs.

Qualifications

• At least 10 years of experience in marketing or strategic services organizations.
• Qualitative research expertise with innovative techniques.
• Familiar with interpreting quantitative research.
• Undergraduate degree in a suitable discipline; graduate degree a plus.
• Familiar with segmentation, analytics, and media research tools like MRI.
• Exceptional customer insight and ability to translate insights into marketing impact.

Responsibilities

• Lead and inspire the LifeBrands planning team to uncover breakthrough customer insights.
• Identify high impact opportunities and translate insights into marketing implications.
• Apply innovative qualitative methods and collaborate with researchers and analytics.
• Maximize the value of insights in creative program development with creatives.
• Champion a pull-based approach to marketing and BrandFit methodology.
• Lead team brainstorms and build productive collaboration across disciplines.
• Demonstrate the impact of account planning to clients and teams.
• Manage two mid-level planners and drive team performance.
• Partner with client data/research teams to maximize insight value.

Skills

Qualitative research

Quantitative research

Strong writing

Communication skills

Consumer insights

Marketing insights

Leadership

Team collaboration

Creative collaboration

Storytelling

Education

Undergraduate degree (relevant)

Graduate degree (MBA/Masters) preferred

Tools

MRI

Job description

Company description

Digitas Health is the modern creative agency that takes on the biggest moments in healthcare, raises the standard of creative, and connects people, partners, and ideas to create work that earns its place in culture. Purpose-built for today’s complex and evolving landscape, we partner with some of the world’s largest healthcare brands to do big things by moving faster, connecting deeper, and unlocking new possibilities at the intersection of creativity, data, technology, and empathy. Guided by our purpose, Connected for Good, and fueled by a vibrant, magnetic culture—we deliver meaningful work that drives relevance, changes behavior, and creates lasting impact, always grounded in humanity, not just technology. As part of Publicis Health and Publicis Groupe, we bring together entrepreneurial energy with the scale, stability, and depth of one of the world’s leading communications networks.

At Digitas Health, what sets us apart isn’t just who we work with, it’s how we work and how it feels to be here. Our culture attracts curious, driven people who want to make a difference and be part of something bigger. Our teams are intentionally crafted across disciplines, perspectives, and experience levels, bringing strategy, creativity, data, and technology together from the start. We believe the best ideas come from curiosity, collaboration, and healthy debate and we expect people here to be thoughtful, engaged, and eager to shape what’s next. If you’re energized by complexity, motivated by impact, and excited to help redefine how healthcare connects with people, we’d love to meet you!

Overview

The Digitas Health LifeBrands Account Planning team uncovers breakthrough customer insights, and helps our teams to turn them into big creative marketing ideas. Planning is part of the creative organization (and tightly integrated with creative) and reports to the SVP/Head of Planning.

The ideal Vice President/Group Director candidate has at least 10 years experience developing and applying breakthrough customer insight in a marketing, creative agency or professional services firm, as well as exceptional thinking, communication and influence skills, leadership, and energy. Most importantly, we seek candidates with enthusiasm for pushing the frontier of how marketing can evolve to meet the needs of an ever more powerful consumer.

• Leveraging customer insight to help the team come up with great creative marketing ideas


• Identifying high impact opportunities for developing breakthrough customer insight


• Creating innovative approaches for coming up with customer insight

Responsibilities

• Proactively determining where and how in-depth insight about the consumer’s attitude and behavior can help make our clients’ marketing more successful and where the opportunities are


• Identifying key customer insights from existing client/Digitas Health LifeBrands data and translating them into relevant marketing program implications


• Applying innovative research and “listening” methodologies to create relevant, breakthrough customer insights


• Partnering with our cutting edge primary researchers, internal analysis group and client data/research organizations to maximize their work’s customer insight and marketing program application value


• Optimizing the impact of customer insight in the creative/program development process by inspiring and partnering with creatives on your team


• Expertly applying the Digitas Health LifeBrands BrandFit approach to marketing program development, and inspiring your teams to embrace a “pull” approach to marketing


• Leading team brainstorms that efficiently produce breakthrough insight and maximize team contributions


• Building productive collaboration and enabling successful teamwork


• Creating demand for account planning’s contributions by demonstrating its impact


• Managing 2 mid-level planners

Qualifications

• At least 10 years’ experience working in marketing and/or strategic services organizations – e.g., general advertising agency account planning group; management consulting firm; brand strategy firm; large DM firm strategic planning/account planning group


• Qualitative research expertise and experience applying innovative qualitative research techniques


• Familiarity with interpreting and applying quantitative research


• Undergraduate degree in a discipline like history, American studies, political science, anthropology/sociology, journalism, or psychology


• Graduate degree is also a plus (e.g., MBA, Masters)


• Familiar with segmentation, analytics and media research tools (e.g., MRI) a plus


• Exceptional customer insight skills


• Intuitive ability to understand what makes consumers “tick”


• Ability to discern the customer insight and “human truth” from mounds of data


• A passion and empathy for the consumer’s perspective


• Avid follower of how marketing is evolving to meet the needs of the ever more powerful consumer; you can tell the difference between YouTube and an inner tube


• Ability to challenge the team to uncover “what’s in it for the customer”


• Passionate about applying cutting edge qualitative methodology to the development of insight


• Experience applying insight to marketing program development


• A knack for helping creative teams understand an insight and translate it into creative magic


• Passion for working with creative people


• Exceptional writing, communication and influence skills


• An inspirational, compelling personality and way of working


• you have the ability to quickly gain the trust of clients and internal team members at all levels


• Excellent teamwork and leadership skills


• A leader and a team builder


• Web experience (and passion!) is highly relevant


• Demonstrated ability to build demand for account planning


• Experience successfully bringing account planning to clients and teams who haven't used it before


• Ambition, accountability, and drive


• You like to do things in a new way, you like convincing people of your point of view, you are driven to succeed

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.

Compensation Range: USD $129,485.00 - USD $186,060.00/Annually. This is the pay range the Company believes it will pay for this position at the time of this posting. 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. Temporary roles may also qualify for participation in our 401(k) plan after eligibility 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 8/16/2026.