Associate Media Director, Strategy & Planning

Responsibilities

• Own end-to-end planning, from data-informed strategy development and budget allocation to activation and optimization and tie every decision to measurable client outcomes.
• Own the client relationship and independently lead client meetings, present recommendations, manage feedback, and proactively resolve challenges.
• Able to work with multiple clients across enterprise-sized organizations.
• Lead cross-channel strategies and recommendations for media campaigns, grounding each recommendation in data, audience insight, and a clear rationale tied to campaign goals.
• Lead Activation, Analytics, and Ad Ops cross-functionally, holding teams to agreed timelines and deliverables.
• Work with all teams, internal and external, to ensure that the highest-quality thinking, measurement, and reporting are applied to campaign KPIs.
• Initiate and review reports, trends, and results, interpreting data to deliver proactive strategic recommendations and next steps that advance business initiatives.
• Maintain financial accountability, including oversight of media budgets, pacing, forecasting, reconciliations, and strategic reallocations.
• Manage campaign execution and oversight, including preparing for launch readiness, addressing trafficking dependencies, and ensuring that campaigns execute accurately and on schedule.
• Directly manage, mentor, and guide the Media Planner and Associate Media Planner roles, contributing to their professional growth and development.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree
• 5+ years of media agency experience with client service, media planning, buying and reporting roles.
• Strong background in digital and traditional media.
• Understanding of digital ad trafficking processes and platforms (CM360, IAS).
• Analytical ability to distill data into actionable insights.
• Ability to collaborate and communicate with clients to strengthen relationships.
• Proven ability of accountability in managing multiple team members.
• Capable of creating solutions and proactively resolving issues.
• Ability to deliver on deadlines and prioritize tasks in order of importance.

Preferred

• Prior exposure to the media-planning process or media resources (such as comScore, Prisma/Media Ocean, MRI Catalyst, Commspoint, Tableau) a plus.
• Polished presentation skills, as well as excellent written communication skills with the ability to convey complex strategies concisely.
• Exceptional interpersonal, leadership, supervisory, and organizational skills.
• Curiosity/desire to learn, keeping up with a constantly changing media landscape (programmatic, augmented reality, etc.).