Planning Manager - Mars Wrigley Europe

Reporting to: The Mars Wrigley EU Planning Lead

Overview of role

This role is for a Communications Planning Manager in the Europe regional team for Mars Wrigley covering the Blueprint markets of the UK, France, Germany, Poland, and the Netherlands. The core focus of this role is to work with the planning and strategy leads to develop regional strategies for MW’s biggest brands; delivering insight-fuelled, data-driven brand experiences with audience planning at the heart of them.

Mars Wrigley is the world’s leading manufacturer of chocolate (including Snickers, Galaxy, and M&Ms) chewing gum (Extra), mints, and fruity confections (Skittles).

EssenceMediacom have worked with Mars for many years in many key markets and we have a strong relationship with them – we work very closely not just with the Mars Communication & Marketing teams in Europe but across their total business. One of Mars’ key pillars is ‘Mutuality’ which is reflected in the way they work with us as the agency partner.

We are enormously proud of the work we have done with Mars in driving growth for their brands and this has been recognised with a host of awards - including Media Week, Campaign, and Cannes.  We believe these awards are a testament to how closely we work with Mars and our integrated approach, both within EssenceMediacom and working in partnership with other agencies.

Mars is embarking upon a transformation of their communications, moving away from the legacy model of mass-reach broadcast-led marketing. Future growth will be driven through a sophisticated understanding of audiences, their growth potential, and the ability of content and communications to target audiences at various stages of their consumer journey with relevant messaging in service of driving outcomes:

This role will be at the heart of putting this transformation into practice through regional media strategies & campaign toolkits across Europe. Audience planning, the shift from comms planning, is key to making this happen. Building plans with biddable and addressable media at the centre of them, you will be comfortable with using multiple data sources and platform insights to create plans that build category reach through the most important moments and audience cohorts for growth. You will harness media and content to create compelling and engaging brand experiences for audiences across Europe.

You will sit in a team of 6 planners, consisting of 1 x lead (Associate Director), 3 x Managers, 1 x Planner, and 1 x Exec.

 Reporting of the role

This role reports to the Mars Wrigley EU Planning Lead

3 best things about the job

1.Joining at a time when our relationship with MW has completely transformed

2.You will work with some of the best people in the industry and work closely with some of our best talent across a full WPP team to drive the Mars transformation agenda

3. Opportunity to work across some of the biggest brands in Europe – e.g., Mars, Snickers, Galaxy, Extra

Measures of success

In three months, you would have:

• Built visibility and confidence with the clients. They will see you as a reliable and trusted partner.
• Built strong relationships within the WPP network, across the region.

In six months, you would have:

• Assisted the leads in driving a step-change in the planning and strategy to support the 2025 vision.
• Supported in driving the transformation agenda, to accelerate performance across the region.
• Developed and mentored the junior members of the team, providing guidance and support, fostering their professional growth and development, and encouraging a collaborative culture within the team.

In 12 months, you would have:

• Helped deliver an improvement in client satisfaction scores.
• Demonstrated alongside the leads, the impact of the evolved approach both on long-term brand metrics and their impact through the funnel.
• Supported in delivering truly full-funnel campaigns, in which brand and shopper are working in tandem in our planning, activation & measurement.

Responsibilities of the role

•        Build and develop opportunity analysis (source of growth) and audience insights, working with local markets to develop regional strategy fueled by local intelligence, media behaviours, and landscape, to help deliver regional ambitions for growth.

•          Work with media and content leads and agency partners to develop Brand Experience Handbooks + Toolkits.

•          Work with the planning and strategy leads, as well as the planning accelerators in the local markets to drive the transformation agenda across addressable, biddable, and Integrated Brand Experiences across the region. In collaboration with specialist leads, develop biddable & addressable campaign strategy, ensuring we are working towards the M2025 targets set globally.

•          Provide close partnership to regional brand leads at Mars across the end-to-end process, from strategy through to optimisation.

•          Jointly managing the planner and exec in the team

•          Work closely with the Operations Manager to ensure following global processes and managing market engagement effectively.

What you will need

Experience in Media Planning

• Proven communication planning skills, supporting in the development of media strategies.
• An understanding of CPG (Consumer Packaged Goods) category, media behaviours, and landscape
• Have experience in working across a variety of media touchpoints, as well as in cross-functional teams incorporating the full funnel (e.g., shopper, PR, etc.)
• Audience planning
• Digital experience, particularly in and around biddable and addressable media

Persuasive Communicator

• You have excellent communication skills, the ability to build strong relationships with clients and networks, strong at presenting.

Insightful analytical thinker with attention to detail

• Good at handling data and extracting learnings.
• Able to derive insights from data.

Collaborative team member

• Able to work with a cross-functional team, guide and manage the output.
• Developing junior team members

High energy and driven

• Committed and passionate about what you do!
• Striving to work on industry-leading campaigns and run a highly functional team

Languages and European experience

• Fluent English mandatory
• International planning experience beneficial

What we can offer you.

• Company pension scheme
• Private medical insurance
• 25 days holiday (increases with length of service)
• Life assurance
• Permanent health insurance
• WPP share options scheme.
• Discretionary bonus scheme
• Free eyecare vouchers and money off glasses
• Extensive training and development
• Corporate gym memberships
• Cycle-to-work scheme
• Interest-free travel loan
• Free breakfast (cereal and fruit)
• Smart shopper (online discount on a variety of products)

Sounds good? We’d love to hear from you!

good? We’d love to hear from you!