L’ Atelier APAC | Associate Director, Client Growth APAC
Description
Overview of job
We are looking for an Associate Director, Client Growth APAC. This role is responsible for servicing the Maison Regional clients and also a few HQ clients and ensuring quality and consistency in media strategy & planning across APAC markets. Alongside this, you are tasked with identifying and driving best practices, media innovations and special projects that help best solve clients needs / challenges across APAC.
You will build frameworks / guidelines and trainings to lift your local market teams to better service local client's expectations. You will also build a trusted partnership with your key client contacts through service excellence and a deep understanding of the luxury market.
This is a unique opportunity to work at the absolute cutting edge of luxury marketing in the world’s most exciting and dynamic region. Luxury marketing is now at an exciting crossroad – preserving brand equity and building long term brand health in a digitally enabled, instant gratification world. How will the industry react to the disruption that new retail and ecommerce are bringing? How will they continue to stay relevant to the next generation of luxury customers? How will they grow their business with increasing competition of boutique and local brands?
3 best things about the job:
1. You will hold a critical role in a niche agency, powered by Mindshare, created specifically to
service a luxury group client, one of the most prestigious media teams in this region. You will
work directly with the regional Maison clients as well as their Media team in Hong Kong. This
is a once-in-a-career opportunity to contribute to the future of luxury for a new generation of
luxury consumers through the power of media.
2. Your role will work side by side with all of the key markets in the region to develop the relevant
Maison strategies and plans centrally and within the local L’Atelier teams. You will lead,
inspire and educate to ensure we have a consistent and high-quality product and service in
place across all deliverables for these Maison.
3. Develop and design frameworks, playbooks and thought leadership documents on various
strategic planning topics based on the brands needs and challenges. You will be supported by
subject matter experts in digital, strategy, performance and data teams within L'Atelier,
MindShare and the larger GroupM ecosystem, which will help you unlock the power of the
network deliver exceptional results for Maison.
In this role, your goals will be:
In three months:
• Dive into the Maison’s history, mission, product lines (past, present, future) and develop a
rock-solid chemistry with the key Maison leadership team, completing all the training we
provide. By this point you will be an expert partner.
• Become fully up-to-speed with the APAC media landscape in general, and competitor media
landscape specifically, having met with all relevant stakeholders and media partners.
• Be completely fluent in the language of L’Atelier, including our bespoke planning framework,
key tools and systems like [m]Platform, and our focus on data and insights, and digital
transformation.
• Bringing all this together, you will have begun the process of setting the APAC Strategy
agenda in collaboration with the specialist leads in the regional team.
• Support local market teams on the expectation from Regional clients and streamline ways of
working /SOW and processes across markets.
• Design and build templates and guidelines for local market approach and planning
In six months:
• You will be leading the strategic planning outputs for the Maisons regionally, and supporting
these outputs for each market.
• You will be managing your coordinator to provide seamless operational and coordination
delivery for your Maison.
• Built outstanding, trusted, relationships with the Maison leads based on delivery of your highvalue,
high-impact work.
In 12 months:
• Got into a strong habit of delivering excellence with an eye to extended L’Atelier and
Mindshare resources, leveraging your network of contacts to drive value and performance for
the Maison.
• Managed the full annual planning proposal for your Maison, from budget setting to
implementation.
• Worked in close collaboration with the team on future communication directives for your
assigned client to address the dynamic media development, with a focus on innovation.
• Become an invaluable partner to your Maison.
As you can see – there is so much opportunity on this account, in this region, and with the support of the people and clients around you. Our promise to you is that this role will enable you to do the best work of your career.
What your day job looks like:
Key responsibilities:
• Client Leadership: you are expected to become an indispensable ally and partner to the
Maison and a critical component to our success. You will have earned the trust to have full
visibility of pipeline activity and work collaboratively with the Maison on briefing processes and
project timelines well in advance.
• Ensure our planning is strategically led, considering consumer insight, business insight and
coming up with media led ideas to deliver value for our client.
• Have the understanding and confidence to discuss all aspects of the business, including
working with the clients to arrive at the best process/systems for managing their business.
• Be an active part of a motivated team focused on improving our delivery to the client.
• Act as a mentor to junior employees.
• Prioritize tasks and appropriately delegate to individual members of the team, including
markets, ensuring they are given adequate time, resource and are sufficiently trained to
execute the tasks.
• Category Passion: you will know your haute couture from couture, black from charcoal grey,
lip pencil from lip liner and beauty serum from essence cream! You will be living and breathing
your passion for luxury.
• Curiosity: you will be a rapacious reader of all things luxury, culture, consumerism, and Asia.
You will seek out the best media communications and marketing work from around the world.
• Project and People Management: You will be managing a coordinator directly, and leading
through influence across multiple markets. Excellent communication and emotional
intelligence is critical for your success.
• Partnering with media platforms to ensure relevant innovation in every proposal.
About You:
• 6+ years account planning, media planning, brand strategy, or marketing experience (Asia
experience is desired but not necessary). You enjoy working in, and managing, multi-cultural
teams where English is not the first language.
• Hands on experience in digital media. Social planning, SEM, e-commerce apart from offline
media planning.
• You are not one who is easily intimidated, especially when it comes to supporting what you
think is right. Consequently, you are at ease when challenging the opinions of senior clients
and leaders.
• You’ll be comfortable taking action on follow-ups by doing the nuts and bolts work yourself
and leading by example.
• You are a passionate media planner who enjoys the thrill of the ride but has the wherewithal
to make sure the engine doesn’t burn out in the process. You like to work hard, but you prefer
working smart and you enjoy helping others to do the same.
• Demonstrate strategic & critical thinking and effective problem solving skills
• Natural curiosity and dynamism
• Excellent communication skills and experience working across teams
About GroupM
GroupM leads and shapes media markets by delivering performance enhancing media products and services, powered by data and technology. Our global network agencies and businesses enable our people to work collaboratively across borders with the best in class, providing them the opportunity to accelerate their progress and development. We are not limited by teams or geographies; our scale and diverse range of clients lets us be more adventurous with our business and talent. We give our talent the space, support and tools to innovate and grow.
GroupM leads and shapes media markets by delivering performance enhancing media products and services, powered by data and technology. Our global network agencies and businesses enable our people to work collaboratively across borders with the best in class, providing them the opportunity to accelerate their progress and development. We are not limited by teams or geographies; our scale and diverse range of clients lets us be more adventurous with our business and talent. We give our talent the space, support and tools to innovate and grow.
Discover more about GroupM at www.groupm.com
Follow @GroupMAPAC on Twitter
Follow GroupM on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/groupm
About Hong Kong
Hong Kong’s small yet highly dynamic and efficient media market means it gets to operate with agility. Its internet and digital penetration continues to grow year-on-year, and has the highest smartphone penetration in Asia Pacific at 87%, while tablet ownership clocks in at 57%. Hong Kong’s digital market boasts a healthy mix of local, regional and global players, providing new opportunities in the media space.
If you want a future in media and communications, and believe in Hong Kong’s belief of “work hard, play hard”, there is clearly no place more vibrant, challenging and exciting than Hong Kong, where opportunities for you to innovate and grow are unparalleled.