Media Planning Director

About WPP Media

WPP is the creative transformation company. We use the power of creativity to build better futures for our people, planet, clients and communities. For more information, visit

Essence Mediacom is a new breed of media agency. Grounded in analytics & insights and powered by data & technology, we believe in the power of media and creative to drive breakthroughs for the world’s best brands. We help clients understand the modern marketing paradox and discover the breakthroughs brands need to win with their consumers. We are designed for the new communications economy — built on data & technology, built for people & algorithms, built around diverse schools of thought, built to test & learn at scale, and, crucially, built to evolve.

The Media Planning Account Director works within a team of media planners with 1–3 direct reports, inspiring innovation and great thinking. The role includes strategic thinking, forecasting, weekly reporting reviews and campaign PCAs or QBRs. They will work with the team to ensure communication to the client is clear, compelling and of a high standard. The candidate will hold close client relationships and work alongside Client Services as the primary face of Essence’s acquisition media planning product for those clients.

They will be ultimately responsible for campaign performance and the delivery of business‑enhancing innovation. They will foster strong external relationships and keep a close eye on the market to ensure new opportunities and research are reviewed and implemented for the benefit of their clients.

You will be a key player in the planning team for Google Ads, defining contextual layers and precision of budgets across channels, and to help evolve best practice, including pushing the adoption of emerging technologies, leading the development and deployment of planning frameworks and the main POC for clients from planning. Managing the team to deliver planning and buying of activity.

• Be the point of contact for Planning across junior and mid level clients, lead weekly meetings with clients and presentations.
• Oversee and quality assure all deliverables produced by junior team members.
• Ensure the delivery of high quality strategic presentations, actionable weekly reporting, insightful post‑campaign analysis and clear briefs to Activation.
• Deliver clear and compelling rationale to support media investment recommendations and to evidence campaign performance versus expected outcomes.
• Work with Activation and Analytics to design the test and learn framework for assigned campaigns.
• Take responsibility for the performance of assigned media budgets against intended outcomes.
• Be a point of escalation for team issues (within and outside the team).
• Contribute to internal thought leadership and team process/workflow enhancement, increasing work quality, making us more efficient, and increasing Essential satisfaction.
• Set the quality standard for one or more planning deliverables per year, improving them over time via team/client feedback and incorporation of evolving external context.

• Motivate a team, leading by example while coaching juniors.
• Provide timely and actionable feedback to aid in team development and improvement.
• Strong spreadsheet capability is a must, with a strong handle on using formulas and ideally able to use AI to build scripts.
• Monitor and support Essential satisfaction across client teams, identifying and implementing ways to maintain or increase satisfaction.
• Foster strong working relationships across the client team to facilitate flawless execution of plans.
• Communicate effectively across all levels of the team.
• Understand when to elevate issues to managers.
• Calculate the workload implication of new campaigns and feed into resource management.
• Provide awareness and recognition for jobs well done.

• Be Extraordinary by Leading Collectively to Inspire transformational Creativity.
• Create an Open environment by Balancing People and Client Experiences by Cultivating Trust.
• Lead Optimistically by…