Department: CEG

Reports to (Position): VP, COMMUNICATIONS STRATEGY

Supervisory Responsibilities (Y/N): Y

FLSA Status (Exempt vs. Non-Exempt): Exempt

Travel (%): 10-20%

Position Function

The Associate Director of Communications Strategy will be responsible for helping guide and shape the communications strategy discipline for GSD&M and its clients. This includes developing creative and innovative communications strategies and go-to-market approaches for GSD&M's clients.

Position Specific Responsibilities/Duties

• Responsible for challenging and inspiring clients and teams to think differently about how brands show up in culture and across channels to breakthrough in today's fragmented and cluttered landscape
• Provide both clients and the agency with crucial perspective on culture, audiences, media trends, creative influences, business dynamics and technology innovations that will inform the strategic approach our clients take to their communications
• Responsible for helping shape how GSD&M defines and implements communications strategy

Strategic Thinking & Leadership:

• Bring the consumer's world to life for creative teams and clients, through an understanding of how they live, their behaviors with respect to content, connections, and media, influencers, life-stage insights, attitudes, and motivations. Furthermore, how these impact on their receptivity to marketing communications, through the use of qualitative and cultural mining, plus the insightful synthesis of quantitative research
• Collaborate with brand strategy, account management, creative, analytics, production, and media, serving as the connective tissue between all groups
• Demonstrating strong analytical and business acumen, identifying a client's core business problem and developing strategic solutions to solve them
• Ensuring that actionable, up-to-date information about the media landscape and ecosystem is communicated regularly to internal teams and clients
• Proactively providing thought leadership and perspective on the significance and implications of new technologies and cultural shifts that can impact a client's business
• Willing and excited to roll up your sleeves and pull research, make decks and brainstorm ideas

Idea Development:

• Partner with media and brand strategy to foster collaboration amongst client teams and internal teams; facilitate brainstorms, think tanks and ideation sessions that drive creativity, innovation and idea generation
• Liaise with client leadership teams and activation teams (production, media partners, media agencies, etc.) to help with idea execution & measurement
• Evaluate communications or media opportunities and provide sound recommendations on those opportunities
• Architect communications narratives and plans to be told across channels
• Take a big idea and allowing for media & audiences to dictate how the story shows up in a way that is native to the environment and helps convey the larger brand story and platform to the audience. Leverage the big idea to create compelling stories for the brand(s) that can live within the infinite media channels of today
• Develop plans and recommendations that go beyond the conventional media flowchart and consider all forms of bought media, non-traditional media, earned media and owned media. Including, but not limited to the product as media, the consumer as media, the store as media, the employees as media or owned content as media
• Serve as the liaison between internal creative teams and external media agencies. Facilitate conversation, brainstorms and idea development

Client & Internal Relationships:

• Build and maintain senior client, prospective client, and industry relationships
• Manage client expectations regarding strategic timing, resourcing, and deliverables
• Accurately represent the consumer point of view when reviewing work, leveraging this perspective when providing feedback to team and presenting to client, ultimately focused on doing the best work, founded in consumer understanding
• Participate and present in New Business efforts and presentations
• Provide appropriate management updates and solicit feedback, education and direction when appropriate

Preferred Qualifications

• We are looking for someone who has a POV on what communications strategy can and should be for an agency in today's landscape
• 6-10 years of experience preferred

Key Characteristics for Success

A major key to success is strong partnerships with brand strategy, media planning and buying, and on the research front, overlaying and combining data and insights. Additionally, a trusted and sought-out collaboration with creative and production is critical to inspire culturally relevant and innovative ideas, from brainstorm through delivery phase.

Most importantly, this person needs to understand that consumers have a new relationship with media that can't be solved by traditional practices of old and is dedicated to driving our clients and teams to think differently about how they approach communications and how brands show up and breakthrough in culture.