Senior Insights Strategist

The role, in brief:
At VJ, the Insights and Strategy team is central to the agency process. The team focuses on how our work can connect more meaningfully with consumers, with a focus on personal relevance and import that extends beyond the transaction. Uncovering these consumer motivations and behaviors is how we develop brand connections for our clients. The Senior Insights Strategist role is a big-idea, original-thinker who encourages clients (and internal account and creative teams) to question assumptions and reshape assignments into unique category-challenging propositions.

This individual acts as a catalyst to move brands forward to and devise innovative ways to engage consumers/customers.

The Senior Insights Strategist leads and contributes to new business and ongoing strategic client engagements, developing a deep understanding of the client’s business environment, competitive landscape, brand goals, vision and strategy. They regularly lead the charge to identify compelling insights, consumer needs and market opportunities that create a competitive advantage and help drive business for the agency’s clients.

The Senior Insights Strategist position is client-facing and will often lead the role of Insight in client work product. In many cases, they will also be a lead player in alignment with Account Services leadership on client deliverables, and works on a daily basis to lead consumer-focused work with multidisciplinary teams throughout the agency.

• Strategy:
  Leverage a deep understanding of brand marketing to collaborate on the successful building of effective, innovative brand strategies across multiple channels
• Research:
  Initiate brand strategy discussions and subsequent market research initiatives to identify market needs, and create and exploit brand opportunities
• Insights: A strong passion for people and the desire to uncover key customer/market insights as the basis for strategies and communication, which change perceptions and influence behavior to create a competitive advantage
• Creativity and Innovation:
  The ability (and desire) to think big across a wide range of strategic opportunities, from launch planning to the evolution of long-standing platforms
• Teamwork:
  Collaborate with multidisciplinary team members in the development and presentation of integrated, innovative, strategic marketing solutions
• Leadership:
  Management of Insights Strategy team members. This includes mentorship in the craft as well as delegation of work related to brand strategy, primary research, and other pertinent departmental projects.
• Analysis:
  Collaborate with multidisciplinary team members to identify key performance indicators that will support brand strategy and objectives, conduct analysis to determine program ROI, help create and inform metric reports and dashboards, make recommendations based on learnings as reports are developed
• Presentation:
  Cool, calm and compelling in the delivery of formal and informal presentations that deliver new thinking, close new business and educate clients and internal teams
• Literacy:
  Ability to produce clear and concise written documents (proposals, strategic rationales, point-of-view statements, case studies, discussion guides, etc.)
• Trend-watcher:
  Stay up to date with current trends and innovation in integrated communication strategies, (e.g., media, digital, research, etc.)

• Always curious, asking deep questions, unearthing new ideas, and finding new ways of looking at the world
• Adept in lateral, analytical and strategic thinking; able to apply creative thinking to business problems.
• Skillful in differentiating core advertising ideas from executional treatments and astute in assessing when ideas meet the brief and how they will influence behavior.
• Steadfast in guiding creative work to meet the brief and committed to nurturing work that does so.
• Possess the innate ability to sift through information to  most important or interesting ideas.
• Knowledgeable about our client’s business and market, and where and how advertising contributes to client success.
• Comfortable leading meetings and presenting ideas and work
• Exceptional in…