Senior Planner Buyer

Senior Planner Buyer, EY & Nestle, London

EssenceMediacom is GroupM’s newest and largest agency, committed to delivering marketing breakthroughs for brands. It has disrupted the old models across media, creative, innovation and analytics to find new opportunities for advertisers and deliver truly integrated media solutions.

Born out of two pioneering agencies, EssenceMediacom fuses Essence’s performance, data, analytics, and creative technology DNA with MediaCom’s scaled multichannel audience planning and strategic media expertise.

As part of WPP, the world's largest marketing communications services group, and GroupM, WPP’s consolidated media investment management arm, we have access to the richest data, most robust benchmarks, and most advanced capabilities in the market. This helps us provide comprehensive solutions to all marketing challenges.

Our ‘breakthrough’ ambition is underpinned by our commitment to ‘continuous learning.’ We aim to ensure our people fulfill their potential by investing in their whole-person wellbeing, careers, and capabilities, which in turn helps grow our clients’ businesses.

EssenceMediacom, with 10,000 people across 120 offices in 96 markets, is one of the world’s leading communications specialists, with billings of more than US$21 billion (Source: COMvergence, 2021). Its global client roster includes adidas, Coca-Cola (TCCC), Dell, Google, Hasbro, Mars, NBC Universal, P&G, Richemont, Shell, Sony, and Uber.

Reports to: The Planner/Buyer will report into the Digital Manager on the EY account.

The Role

The successful candidate will use their foundational digital skills to support in the creation, technical set-up, and execution of Digital campaigns. They will continue to advance their learning of the client/agency environment of account servicing and quality control to meet target key performance indicators in campaign delivery. They will keep abreast of industry trends and conditions that may impact performance, devising new ideas to refine and improve campaign strategies in consultation with their line manager. This role is focused on media planning and buying, execution, and reporting. The role will be working on EY (Ernst & Young) & Nestle across their global brand and service line multi-market campaigns.

Responsibilities of the Role

1. Planning, Analysis, and Insight:

• Taking briefs from clients and working with the Manager and Associate Director to determine the required strategic approach.
• Reviewing best practice and benchmark data to apply insights to help rationalise media selection.
• Helping develop media rationale and plan to present back to the client.
• Briefing and negotiating with media vendors.
• Understanding and implementing the MediaCom planning process.

• Participate in all client meetings as required and contribute to the production of any presentations.
• Identify key risks to the delivery and performance against brief on a regular basis and manage remedial programmes to mitigate such risk; escalating as appropriate.
• Leverage third-party platforms for campaign advertising management, optimisation, and reporting.
• Be responsible for the technical setup of digital campaigns with ad serving and tracking systems.
• Take ownership of account/campaign delivery.
• Be responsible for accurate daily, weekly, and monthly reporting and commentary.
• Ensure the delivery, optimisation, and reporting of digital media advertising campaigns across all digital channels.

• Remain up to date with market trends to advise customers of future strategy.
• Understand the market and customer demographics.

• Take accountability for sharing key information across the team and with other teams as appropriate.
• Ensure relevant business knowledge is deployed, shared, and retained within the team and shared across the wider function where relevant.

• Effectively manage stakeholder relationships by ensuring expectations are well managed.
• Maintain a sustainable positive relationship with key customer stakeholders and maintain contact as appropriate and expected.
• Ensure compliance with client-defined service level agreements and performance standards.
• Attend key client meetings/calls, as required.
• Advance on already established basics of client account servicing and best practices in managing results to meet client KPIs.
• Support the wider team in client servicing best practices.

• Reporting into your Digital Manager frequently and proactively.
• Be responsible for the Media Executive and ensure they take control and ownership of their role. This should be accompanied by a task list that’s regularly reviewed, discussed, and appraised.
• Sharing priority task lists on a weekly basis.

• Comply with all internal processes around quality assurance, ensuring all client-facing information is proofed prior to submission.
• Reconcile all media costs against PO and deal with any financial concerns.
• Organise budget caps to ensure agreed budgets are not exceeded.
• Ensure all media spends are entered onto Prisma in a timely fashion.

• Contribute constructively to the identification and improvement of central processes which could deliver higher performance.
• Act with initiative, contribute to the definition of new processes and support the rollout and implementation e.g. training of the team in such processes.
• Ensure robust operational process and workflow across digital advertising campaigns in line with EssenceMediacom internal process and industry best practice.

Best things about the job:

• Opportunity to work on campaigns with cross-channel digital execution at a global level.
• Work on exciting media partnerships.
• Be involved in end-to-end campaign planning and execution.