GLOBAL PERFORMANCE MEDIA MANAGER, ROYAL CANIN (MARS) – EMEA (London) 

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Reports to: Associate Director 

The role 

The Performance Media Manager will be responsible alongside the senior leadership for the ongoing implementation of the digital transformation program and ensuring Royal Canin are getting the most value out of their digital business partnerships. Therefore, we are looking for a strong digital Performance candidate to work alongside the Brand team. We also expect the candidate to have excellent planning experience and strategic thinking capability. The candidate should be motivated by creating smart and forward thinking connected digital communications plans to help solve problems.  

This role is to work within a centralised European planning team across the Royal Canin brand in 16 markets. The role brings a new focus to Performance Media for Royal Canin, which has previously been planned with a % of FTE resource and no full focus. Your full time role will allow us to accelerate in this field and put in place robust media plans & analysis. 

 The team you will join is responsible for developing appropriate full-funnel media plans based on a globally defined strategy for each of our markets and deliver that brief for deployment, supporting them in seeing that through to successful execution. You will have a full D2C, Retail and 1PD Global strategy to work with, as well as up to 3 years of activity & results to develop and work into the next phase of Royal Canin’s Performance media strategy. 

The role as a Performance Media Manager is to act as the interface between the client and the agency across Royal Canin EU, and to do so by fully understanding the client’s business, with a focus on Performance Media. The Media Manager will report into the Associate Director and have key client contacts across the different EU regions, as well as central clients leading the D2C and Retail businesses. 

This is a key client facing position that requires strong relationships both with the global EM planning team and key client contacts in the Region and Local markets. You will also collaborate with local specialist teams in EM offices, such as our influencer agency GOAT and the SEO team at EM. The Royal Canin assignment spans over 40 countries with key regions being Europe, APAC and the Americas.  

Within the role you will be expected to work alongside your brand team members to ensure we are creating holistic plans from Brand through to conversion and integrating the right strategies depending on the client briefs. You will have the opportunity to work with 2 other Media Managers in the Brand team to develop holistic plans. 

Performance media for Royal Canin 

Royal Canin are active across 3 main Digital Conversion touchpoints; D2C, 1PD Acquisition and Retail Media. We have a Global strategic playbook which is due to be deployed soon, part of your role will be taking this and ensuring we are implementing best practice across all conversion possibilities in the EU. 

Royal Canin are active with D2C in 5 of their EU markets, with 2 more to launch later this year. You will be in charge of client management, planning and execution of the D2C Media in these markets. Each market on Royal Canin side has a media manager and a clear strategy set by the RC/EM Global team. You will be responsible for the execution of this, and creation of T&L strategies within your markets to ensure we continue to grow the business in a positive manner.  

Under Performance Media for Royal Canin we also have their 1PD data acquisition (including sending out kits & samples) Royal Canin are active with 1PD acquisition in most EU markets, we need a dedicated focus on ensuring media execution is consistent and followed. 

Retail Media is newer for Royal Canin and something they are yet to explore heavily. They invest a strong portion via their Trade deals, therefore the role at present is helping them optimise their spend and ensuring our conversion media is in compliment to Retail. 

Success will require the ability to toggle between seeing the bigger picture – for strategy and guidelines development – and the forensic detail of multiple market campaign management. The MM will ensure that all client daily and weekly requests are managed and responded to in a timely and accurate manner. 

 To achieve these objectives, MM needs to be an excellent team player. The successful candidate will share the management of an Exec and work closely with the Connected Execution Search, Social and programmatic teams. Other teams the Performance Media Manager might be required to work with are Data Strategy, Business Science, Ecommerce, SEO and any other agency either from WPP or beyond that will contribute towards our client’s business.  

Accountabilities include: 

Client Management 

• Lead the ongoing digital transformation approach and how best to implement across each market 

• Be the trusted advisor and main day-to-day contact for markets  

• Build a close working relationship with key market leads 

• Be responsible for brilliant work to be delivered on M Process Annual Planning, review sessions and overall servicing 

Media Planning 

• Review brief and strategic guidance from the client and the AD to translate it into an implementational media plan 

• Work with your planning and Executional teams to research audience, media touchpoints and source of growth opportunities 

• Interrogate historic performance data to determine or optimise the existing opportunity and key variables which might improve the effectiveness of our media plan eg. day of week, frequency, messaging, pricing, targeting options 

• Access key 1st/3rd party data to maximise insight and targeting strategy 

• Work with Planners to create media plan which contains core ROI media solutions, with in-built variable tests to ensure there is always a “test and learn” strategy in place 

• Meet regularly with publishers and digital partners to understand available tactics, eg use of data, technology, creative and trading techniques to drive volume and efficiency 

• Understand and apply key tech stack solutions to delivery maximum ROI and volume 

• Create media plans via planning templates and manage booking sign off 

• Provide media specialists with their brief – budget, audience, phasing, targets and any other relevant information to support their detailed in-channel planning 

• Understand key data sources including MMM data and interrogate and apply learnings  

• Work with the Global team to identify opportunities to implement “test and learn” strategies across local market plans 

• Monitor performance of live campaigns to identify key wins/challenges 

• Help to generate relevant and innovative ideas and understand available tactics, e.g. use of data, technology, creative and trading techniques, to drive volume and efficiency  

• Provide media specialists with their brief – budget, audience, phasing, targets and any other relevant information to support their detailed in-channel planning 

Execution 

• Support in aggregation of output from media specialists – planning; reporting; insight/analysis 

• Supply reconciliations of delivery across the plan from each media owner/media specialist which the Planners directly booked 

• Ensure media execution excellence with the right formats being used, optimisations made and audiences targeted 

• Ensure tagging and tracking is in place and tested 

Reporting & Optimisation 

• Work with the buying teams to interpret performance data and decide on optimisation opportunities 

• Generate key charts/slides which demonstrate performance, test learnings and next steps 

• Ensure strong commentary that gives insight and action (beyond what the result/trend is) 

• Work with the EM Global team to implement measurement methods to explore incrementality of Media eg. Geo testing, conversion lift or Search lift  

Team Management 

• Work with and develop the Exec, making sure they understand the targets, media solutions and analysis techniques required to maximise effectiveness of our plans 

• Work with and develop the Exec to provide strong media delivery and financial reconciliations 

• Manage the media specialists to ensure they are correctly briefed and supported in their scope of work 

• Work with Finance team to reconcile and deliver efficient PO to invoicing process 

A bit about your skills and experience: 

The successful candidate will be ambitious and collaborative with a can-do attitude. They will want to embrace the culture at EssenceMediacom and likewise on Royal Canin, and be excited by the opportunity to get stuck in and learn from a welcoming and friendly team. 

Summary of requirements; 

• Very detail orientated and experience in managing multiple agencies and stakeholders 

• Strong communication skills, influencing skills and focus on delivering high service levels 

• Experience managing a media budget for clients  

• Strong analytical skills, to spot trends and optimisation opportunities 

• It is essential that the candidate has a strong understanding of the digital landscape and can harness the opportunities for brand growth 

• Understanding of available planning/targeting data to drive effectiveness and optimisation  

• Excellent communications planning skills and knowledge across all media 

• Excellent presentation skills (writing and delivery) 

• Strong communication and ability to hold a room in all situations 

• The ability to challenge clients in a structured and well thought through way 

• Insight and strategy capabilities 

• Technology experience in order to maximise digital capabilities to drive ROI (Dynamic creative; re-targeting; DMP/DSP; ad server/site analytics understanding) 

• Ideally, hands-on experience using digital platforms and reporting tools such as Google Analytics, Data Studio and PowerBI would be advantageous 

Personal attributes 

• Strong team player, shows relevant initiative and pro-activity 

• Positive and passionate approach that motivates the team & champions team successes 

• Winning mentality, striving to exceed expectations 

• Self-driven, passionate for new ideas and solutions 

• Extremely organised with strong attention to detail 

• Effective and calm under pressure 

• Ability to respect deadlines and project manage team, inter agency partners and clients against a clear plan 

• Able to multitask and change priorities rapidly, flexible 

• Flexible to the ever-changing requirements of working within a multi-client team 

• Possess the skills to solve problems promptly. If facing challenges, strong communication skills to raise with line manager/team lead in an effective way 

• Analytical capabilities – comfortable with data to provide strategic recommendations by using all available data 

About GroupM

GroupM is the leading global media investment management operation serving as the parent company to WPP media agencies including Mindshare, Wavemaker, EssenceMediaCom, and each global operations in their own right with leading market positions. GroupM’s primary purpose is to maximize performance of WPP’s media agencies by operating as leader and collaborator in trading, content creation, sports, digital, finance, proprietary tool development and other business-critical capabilities. GroupM’s focus is to deliver unrivalled marketplace advantage to its clients, stakeholders and people.

GroupM and all its affiliates embrace and celebrate diversity, inclusivity, and equal opportunity. We are committed to building a team that represents a variety of backgrounds, perspectives, and skills. We are a worldwide media agency network that represents global clients. The more inclusive we are, the more great work we can create together.

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