Responsibilities

• Maintain a deep understanding of the business, target audiences and wider communications environment
• Identify and build target audiences, test their viability, and determine scalability using syndicated and proprietary tools (i.e. MRI-Simmons, Helixa, primary research)
• Understand and integrate client and creative agency research
• Write POVs on topics relevant to our key clients and agency
• Enter industry competitions (i.e. Young Lions) to represent UM and grow as a strategist; Attend technology and emerging media presentations to stay on top of trends
• Apply syndicated and proprietary data to develop key insights across culture, the category, and customers with actionable media implications
• Support the translation of complex concepts into simple, powerful narratives and present strategic recommendations to the client; Package strategic ideas with clarity for presentation
• Develop the strategic positioning for a given product by considering category, consumer, and competitive context
• Develop effective and inspiring relationships with UM teams, including strategy, research, analytics, planning, activation, and digital teams
• Work closely with the Planning Team to translate the campaign strategy and ideas into actionable media implications

Requirements

• Strategic Thinking
• Ability to clearly define business and communication problems before jumping to solutions
• Demonstrates structured thinking (can break complex issues into components and prioritize what matters)
• Connects audience, brand, and category dynamics into a coherent point of view
• Seeks to stay ahead of category, cultural, and media shifts
• Insight & Analysis
• Comfortable synthesizing research, cross-tabs, and cultural signals into clear implications
• Moves beyond “what happened” to “so what” and “now what”
• Can identify assumptions and pressure-test them
• Communication & Influence

Nice To Have

• 4–6+ years in media strategy, communications planning, brand strategy, or adjacent role
• Experience working on integrated agency teams (creative, PR, media collaboration)
• Exposure to advertising and brand building principles (e.g., mental availability, distinctiveness, long vs. short-term impact)
• Can translate data and research into clear, persuasive narratives
• Comfortable presenting sections of work and building toward leading larger conversations
• Demonstrated curiosity about culture, consumer behavior, and business dynamics
• Comfort working in ambiguity and shaping loose inputs into structured outputs
• Demonstrates an interest in improving storytelling and presentation craft

Benefits

• We offer a Total Rewards package that includes medical and dental coverage, 401(k) plans, flex spending, life insurance, disability, employee discount program, employee stock purchase program and paid family benefits to support you and your family.