Implementation & Activation Associate Director

About WPP Media

WPP is the trusted growth partner for the world’s leading brands. With exceptional talent, trusted data and intelligence, and world-class partnerships – all united by our pioneering agentic marketing platform, WPP Open – we help clients navigate change, capture opportunity, and deliver transformational growth. 

WPP Media is WPP's AI-driven media operating unit, bringing together media, data, and partnerships to deliver creative personalisation at scale. Connected through WPP Open and powered by Open Intelligence, clients see exactly where, how, and why their media investment is working.

For more information, visit wppmedia.com.

About EssenceMediacom

A Leading WPP Media Brand, EssenceMediacom 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.

Role Summary and Impact

​The Implementation & Activation Associate Director is a critical role, over-seeing delivery across a team of implementation planning and activation specialists. As a leader you are responsible for supervising team workflow to ensure client demands are met, team workloads are balanced and ensuring a high level of effective collaboration between team members and key stakeholders. Working very closely with your manager, you will produce best-in-class solutions, offer unparalleled service and deliver against target

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Overview of Implementation & Activation

​The Implementation & Activation team is responsible for delivering best-in-class implementation planning and activation for clients.

Our Implementation & Activation team are fully embedded within our EssenceMediacom client teams, and accountable to the clients they work on.

The scope of the Implementation & Activation team covers the Implementation Planning and Activation of all media channels and touchpoints, with a focus on delivering connected, audience-first client outputs. Within the team, we have some team members who work across all channels and both implementation planning & activation, and others who specialise and work across a more focused scope of work, (for example, Performance specialists who work across Social & Search).

With our collective industry expertise, we navigate the ever-changing media landscape efficiently and effectively, fueling growth for the brands we work with. Our commitment to transparency and accountability drives best-in-class results consistently. Leveraging our exceptional media relationships to keep our finger on the pulse of emerging opportunities.

Key Relationships

• Collaborating closely with internal teams​

• Establishing strong relationships with relevant media, data, and technology partners​

• Fostering deep trust and understanding with clients​

• Contribute to great teamwork in your immediate team

Role responsibilities

Clients​

• Cultivate strong, trusted relationships with clients at an intermediate to senior level​

• Offer expert perspectives and POVs on recent market trends or developments, ensuring they're shared with key stakeholders regularly.​

• Regularly meet with vendors and partners to drive your client's agenda, creating opportunities for your team members to get involved and engage.​

• Maintain an in-depth understanding of client challenges, objectives & initiatives, and be able to clearly articulate these to your team and your media partners.​

• Focus on building the agency's reputation for outstanding client service.​

• Robust understanding of the in-scope services of your clients and the process for completing work above and beyond​

• Proactively recommend tactics and opportunities that resolve client challenges and objectives.​

Product​​

• Brings innovation and creativity to the table, leveraging insights from across the market.​

• When required, a strict adherence to activation commitments that have client contract association. ​

• Able to construct and present effective and future facing Implementation plans, that are grounded in strategic priorities and data-led optimisation recommendations. ​

• Maintain an in-depth knowledge of the media landscape, able to confidently articulate and train others on core media principles and the how each media touchpoint can fuel growth for clients. ​

• Collaborate closely with internal product teams including GroupM proprietary product and service teams to ensure you can clearly articulate the benefits of their inclusion, with a focus on identifying growth opportunities that can transform outcomes.​

• Seek to find, communicate and implement improvements in all aspects of the role.​

• A pivotal role for client media audits, media negotiations and billings forecasting, working hand in hand with your key stakeholders to deliver client KPI’s.

People​

• Motivate and empower direct reports to achieve individual, team and organisational goals. ​

• Conduct fortnightly 1:1 check-ins, annual Career Conversations and Annual Performance Reviews with direct reports.​

• Liaise with the People Team to resolve any team disputes to ensure a safe and productive team environment. ​

• Continuously champion company values to build strong and trusted connections, solution-oriented perspectives and demonstrate that you genuinely care for collective team success.

Growth & Marketing​

• Identify, collate and showcase examples of great work from within the team, both internally and externally.​

• Build the agency’s reputation by contributing to entries for awards and competitions and by contributing to industry thought leadership.​

• Actively contribute to new business development and pitching when required.

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What Makes You Great​

• You feel empowered to bring your authentic self to work, and contribute to great teamwork, knowing your individual ideas and thoughts will be welcome.​

• Passion for our industry, with robust craft and leadership experience.​

• Strong, up to date, media landscape knowledge (confidently able to articulate macro consumer trends and the challenges and opportunities they bring). ​

• Problem solving mentality. ​

• Clear communicator, with strong presentation skills. ​

• Highly collaborative, with the ability to bring together the right people at the right time​

• Results driven with the ability to identify and clearly articulate what’s working and why.

Life at WPP Media & Benefits

Our passion for shaping the next era of media includes investing in our employees to help them do their best work, and we’re just as committed to employee growth as we are to responsible media investment. WPP Media employees can tap into the global WPP Media & WPP networks to pursue their passions, grow their networks, and learn at the cutting edge of marketing and advertising. We have a variety of employee resource groups and host frequent in-office events showcasing team wins, sharing thought leadership, and celebrating holidays and milestone events.

WPP Media is an equal opportunity employer and considers applicants for all positions without discrimination or regard to characteristics. We are committed to fostering a culture of respect in which everyone feels they belong and has the same opportunities to progress in their careers. We believe the best work happens when we're together, fostering creativity, collaboration, and connection. That's why we’ve adopted a hybrid approach. If you require accommodations or flexibility, please discuss this with the hiring team during the interview process.

While we appreciate all applications received, only those candidates selected for an interview will be contacted.

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