Group Planning Director

Job Description

The Big Picture:

VCCP is the Challenger Agency for Challenger Brands. An independent, 1,250-person strong creative company, that exists to transform its clients fortunes by disrupting the categories they operate in.

VCCP is fully integrated, with deep capabilities in data and analytics, brand strategy, communications, customer experience, media, production and distribution. The company was founded in 2002 in London, with offices in New York, San Francisco, Singapore, Shanghai, Sydney, Madrid and Prague.

Our London office has been shortlisted for Campaign magazine’s Agency of the Year almost every year for the past decade, topping the new business table 9 years out of the last 10.

Our Culture:

The VCCP Group has a unique culture, and we are looking for people who will make a positive contribution to this, therefore the candidate must have the following attributes:

• A collaborative nature
• An entrepreneurial spirit
• Take pride in their work
• Have an honest approach
• Be un-precious and be able to recognise that a good idea can come from anywhere
• Take responsibility

Our Purpose:

So what do we actually do? Put simply, we exist to transform the fortunes of our clients by challenging and disrupting the categories they operate in. It’s why we describe ourselves as ‘The Challenger Agency for Challenger Brands’

VCCP Media:

We are the challenger agency for challenger brands. Just like Bernadette, the little girl in our logo, we stand up to the two tonne grizzly bear in our industry; Boring, Beige, Baffling media. Media that feels lazy, samey and ineffective. Media can be magic. Media can be powered by data and technology, not lost in it. Media can challenge the status quo. Now that sounds like a challenge worth taking up.

That’s because we’re VCCP. We do media. We just do it differently.

At the beginning of 2024 we underwent a significant change in leadership and organisation, centring our offering on challenging the bad habits of the industry, driving creativity in media, and delivering more effective work through integration.

VCCP Media is a full service agency that sits at the heart of the VCCP Group. We offer clients the full spectrum of paid media capabilities from TV, cinema and radio, to social, PPC, SEO consultancy, Data & Technology consultancy.

THE ROLE:

We’re looking for a super-smart senior Media Planner who can deliver exceptional, effective challenger work, in line with our principles of creativity & integration.

You’ll work in close collaboration with an equally smart Strategist, to form a dynamic duo to lead a range of projects across our existing clients, new business, and consultancy remits that connect into the wider VCCP Partnership, and our sister agencies.

You’ll be a key contact for clients, delivering sage advice, brilliant account management, taking a vested interest in their success, and helping them drive business forward.

You’ll report to the Chief Planning Officer, and be supported by junior Planners (Planning Managers & Execs) who you’ll need to nurture and inspire. You’ll also be working closely with a range of media specialists, across all disciplines, who also sit within the extended Planning Team.

The projects will be fast-paced, and varied, and give you direct access to a broader set of partnership experts.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES:

We’ll need you to unlock value! Consulting with clients on how we can grow their business

Skills: Support your team’s strategist to challenge effectiveness across the full funnel, and full marketing mix, understanding which levers we can pull to drive growth

Capabilities:

• To deconstruct and humanise a business challenge, and make clear recommendations on the actions required to address that challenge.
• To identify and quantify barriers and opportunities within a customer journey, and to display a strong understanding of the channels and tactics that can be used to meet those needs.
• To be able to make clear budget setting recommendations (top down and, bottom up)
• To be competent in forecasting performance outcomes

We’ll need you to challenge audiences! Being able to identify, quantify and successfully engage the people we need to achieve business growth for a brand.

Skills: Challenging where and how audiences can be reached through communications

Capabilities:

• An ability to identify, quantify and justify the most relevant audiences for a brand, based on a volumetric rationale
• A good understanding of, and ability to interrogate, media and audience data
• The ability to translate a planning audience into practical, buyable implementation audience across all key media platforms

We’ll need you to challenge media! Connecting smart modelling and brilliant audience understanding into effective full funnel media plans

Skills: Challenging conventional media wisdom to deliver more effective plans.

Capabilities:

• The ability to choreograph a full funnel plan, across all touchpoints
• The ability to define an effective media mix, with clear compelling rationale
• Competency in all aspects of digital media, with a clear point of view on performance planning
• Briefing specialist teams and assessing their in-channel plans
• Ensuring that performance planning oversight is provided, and plans deliver on brief

We’ll need you to challenge how our brands show up! Delivering creativity in media, that makes our communications more effective, and builds brands that populate culture

Skills: Challenging in channel execution and creativity in media (and beyond)

Capabilities:

• Deep knowledge of all key media and platforms, and a thirst to stretch the ‘art of what’s possible’ in those environments
• An ability to deliver creative execution in channel
• An ability to champion ‘big ideas’ and push them through to execution
• The ability to build a test and learn program, to ensure learning and forward momentum is inherent in all our media plans

Tasks: Media plan execution, defending and delivering creativity in media, ensuring the plan delivers on brief, and on strategy, retaining a masterview of optimisation

VCCP DE&I STATEMENT

We believe that DE&I is about creating a strong culture of within our agency, where everyone can thrive and be their authentic self. VCCP is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate on the basis of gender, belief, marital status, or other protected characteristics. If you require any adjustments during the application or interview process, please let us know via joinus@vccp.com.

CRIMINAL RECORDS INFORMATION

As part of our onboarding process, you will be required to complete a Criminal Records Declaration regarding any unspent convictions. For roles in finance, HR, Legal, IT or senior management, we may be required to verify your declaration with a basic DBS check, as well as an Adverse Finance and ID check.

**Please note, we try to respond to as many applications as possible but, if you do not hear from us within two weeks of submitting your application, please assume we are unable to proceed with your application for this specific role. Thank you for your interest in VCCP**