Planning Director; FTC Maternity Cover

COMPANY OVERVIEW

Croud is a global, full service digital marketing agency with a unique business model that helps businesses drive sustainable growth in the new world of marketing. Croud was recently named a Sunday Times Best Place to Work for the second year in a row, and was named Performance Marketing Employer of the Year by PMW.

At Croud, we unlock potential by elevating our people, clients, and communities within a rapidly advancing and complex economy. We operate as a unique scaled network of Intelligent, Creative Specialists, enabling us to deliver superior brand outcomes and unlock potential for our people, our clients and our communities.

Our culture is strategically driven and inspired by a shared long-term vision. It is collaborative and connected, with a focus on continuous learning and mutual support.

We are energised by future thinking, driving innovation to achieve better outcomes. We are instinctively generous, actively including and empowering our people. Above all, we are purpose-driven, committed to positively impacting our people, the planet, and our global communities.

At Croud, Planning Directors are responsible for growing our clients’ businesses by matching incisive strategy with the plan to deliver it. That requires strategic smarts, a detailed knowledge of media and media planning and the ability to build transformative partnerships with clients. They form part of the leadership structure of our Client Teams, tasked with delivery against commercial objectives and leading strategic thinking and innovation for their clients.

Key responsibilities include, but are not limited to:

Client Retention & Growth

• Work closely with senior client stakeholders to identify and solve key marketing challenges, as well as internal collaboration with other teams at Croud to produce strategy with broad buy‑in and media plans
• Steer Croud’s relationships with key clients and build a deep understanding of the commercial drivers of their business. Work with other team members to mark senior client stakeholders.
• Be responsible for every stage of the campaign planning process: interpreting a client’s objectives, creating measurement frameworks, writing incisive strategy, building testing methodologies and diagnosing performance
• Lead on annual planning for key clients: set strategic direction for the year ahead, socialise it amongst Croud teams and client stakeholders and build the plan for putting it into action
• Lead on all cross‑channel media planning, ensuring that investment decisions made on behalf of clients are rigorously informed by all the available data. Collaborate - and provide direction to - the activation teams, ensuring all plans are complete, accurate and innovative
• Responsible for audience, market and competitor intelligence projects, ensuring that work is insightful and actionable
• Deliver complex marketing problem solving; turning solutions into strategies to present back to clients
• Contribute to your Team’s understanding of a client’s category, brand and audience. Create repeatable and distinctive ways to share that information with the wider Croud team and ensure that the way we present is always as client‑centric as possible

Commercial & KPIs

• Drive revenue for Croud through existing account growth and contribution to business development
• Act as an important contributor for pitches: work with Planning Partners on setting the pitch strategy, determining the narrative and creating a framework for other contributors to use
• The potential to act as part of a Team Triumvirate, delivering against the outlined KPIs
• Ensure all Strategy & Planning work is delivered according to budget
• Build strategic relationships with senior stakeholders, acting as counsel for key decisions about marketing investment
• Drive client‑centric solutions that exceed expectations and deliver tangible business value

High‑Performing Culture, Team Collaboration and Inclusion

• Manage a Planning team within a client hub, including line management of one or more Planning Managers. Ensure all Strategy & Planning work delivered to clients is of the highest quality and market‑leading
• Contribute to a culture of…