Global Performance Senior Planner

Operating Company

Mediacom WW

Job Title

Global Performance Senior Planner

Department / Team

Mars Petcare & Royal Canin

Reporting To

Global Performance Associate Director

Location

London

About MediaCom: People First, Better Results

People First, Better Results articulates our belief that an agency is only as good as the people behind the name. We believe that our people are truly what differentiate us as an agency. It is they who drive the success of the company, attracting clients who want to work with the smartest, most motivated people possible. Because we believe in the power of our employees to build our business, we aim to work in a way that recognises this; creating a culture and working environment that is exciting, stimulating and challenging.

MediaCom is one of the world’s largest and most successful media networks with 7,000 people working in 125 offices in 100 countries. To stay ahead of our competitors, MediaCom has always positioned itself as a visionary partner for our clients, challenging them by homing in on ground-breaking, commercial ideas based on in-depth insights and marketplace knowledge.

Our people and our culture are vital to our continued success. Like every company, we look to find the best people for the job. We believe we employ the best people in the industry. However, it doesn’t end with finding the best talent. We spend considerable time and funding ensuring that our people are motivated, have the best training and advancement opportunities and understand their clients’ businesses. We believe that by putting our People First, we deliver Better Results for our clients.

About Mars

Having been appointed in 2018 as their sole planning/buying agency, MARS are MediaCom’s biggest client Globally, with a total ad spend of just over $1Bn across 3 core segments: Confectionary, Pet, Food.

Our brief in 2018 was to help them drive transformation across marketing and media.

Marketing transformational for MARS means sustainable growth by ensuring every brand interaction creates shared value for the people, pets and partners they serve, ensure their brands​:

• Thinking is founded in data-driven human insight​
• Make content and media choices to be culturally famous and meaningfully personal​
• Are purpose driven

Media transformation for MARS means growing media contribution to sales by:

• Accelerating transformation to an intelligent reach model​
  • Reinventing Reach​
  • Connecting at meaningfully personal moments​
  • Proven growth through integrated brand experiences (brand through to D-Commerce)​
• Establishing actionable 1PD framework​
• Deploying agile content model​
• Driving performance through the funnel​
• Continued pressure on reach-based media pricing to drive efficiency or re-deploy

A consistent thread throughout this transformation agenda is helping MARS build digital availability across their portfolio and converting the demand that exists in this space. With most category growth coming from ecommerce it’s imperative they win in this space to help deliver on their growth ambitions.

To address this MARS have been building out owned visibility on core online retailors as well as developing new D2C business models and launching them to market.

This purpose of this role is to join a centralised Global team to help MARS on this journey, with an ambition of supporting them to become one of the best performance marketers globally.

Role Description

The Performance Senior Planner’s role is primarily to support the Performance Associate Director in the creation of and day-to-day management of the media plan to maximise ROI for a client.

The primary focus will be on media plan optimisation, working with the Performance Planner/Executive to ensure clear understanding of what is working and why, plus media owner liaison regarding buying and media plan delivery.

To perform that task, the Senior Planner will be required to have experience in these key areas:

• Planning and execution experience of key ROI offline and digital media
• Technology experience in order to maximise digital capabilities to drive ROI (Dynamic creative; re-targeting; DMP/DSP; ad server/site analytics understanding)
• Analytical skills, to help spot trends and optimisation opportunities
• Understanding of available planning/targeting data to drive effectiveness and optimisation
• Creative experience – best practice approach to increasing response and conversion rates
• Strong communication skills, influencing skills and focus on delivering high service levels
• Media financial systems to ensure smooth reconciliation and QC of bookings

Key Tasks

Client Management

• Participate in calls and meetings with clients discussing performance and future strategies
• Support in creation of rationale for a media plan and any optimisation decisions and their outcomes
• Support in delivery of post-campaign analysis
• Deliver reconciliation information regarding media delivery

Media Planning

• Work with Performance Associate Director to translate strategy and comms plan into media selection
• Carry out research on competitive analysis, audience profiling and market trends and key audience touchpoints
• Access key 1st/3rd party data to maximise insight and targeting strategy
• Meet media owners to discuss the brief and generate relevant and innovative ideas
• Create media plans via planning templates and manage booking sign off
• Interrogate historic performance data (where available) to determine or optimise the existing opportunity and key variables which might drive ROI (e.g. day of week, frequency, messaging, pricing, targeting options)
• 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
• Monitor day-to-day performance of live campaigns to identify key wins/challenges
• Meet regularly with publishers and digital partners to understand available tactics, e.g. 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
• Provide media specialists with their brief – budget, audience, phasing, targets and any other relevant information to support their detailed in-channel planning

Execution

• Negotiate and buy media not covered by other media specialists (usually offline or direct display partners and partnerships)
• Manage operational execution in appropriate systems e.g. ad server, brand safety
• Support in aggregation of output from media specialists – planning; reporting; insight/analysis
• Supply weekly reconciliations of delivery across the plan from each media owner/media specialist which the Planner directly booked
  

Reporting & Optimisation

• Work with analysts and media specialists to interpret weekly 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 (not just saying what the result/trend is)
• Work with Business Science / Analytics in the use of ROI measurement tools e.g. Spotlift, digital attribution, Economiser
• Deliver regular reconciliation reports where appropriate
  

Team Management

• Manage weekly integration of execution staff to ensure media plan is optimised and delivered accurately
• Manage Media Executive regarding liaison with Ad Ops and Analytics teams around tracking requirements for new campaigns
• Work with Finance team to reconcile and deliver efficient PO to invoicing process

About MARS Pet Nutrition

Mars is a multinational company with 3 major business segments: Mars Wrigley Confectionery, Petcare and Food.

Mars Pet Nutrition boasts some of the world’s best-known Pet food brands – including Pedigree, Whiskas, Sheba, Cesar and Dreamies. Mars Petcare is a significant segment in the overall Mars business, generating a substantial revenue for the company. With a portfolio of pet food brands, they aim to serve against any pet owner’s need for their pets and their mission is to make a better world for pets.

Mediacom have worked with Mars for many years in many key markets and we have a very strong relationship with them – we work very closely not just with the Mars marketing team but across their business. One of Mars’ key pillars is mutuality which is reflected in the way they work with Mediacom as the agency partner.

We are very proud of the work we have done with Mars in driving growth for their brands and this has been recognised with a host of awards - including Media Week, Campaign and Cannes. We believe these awards are a testament to how closely we work with Mars and our integrated approach, both within Mediacom and working in partnership with other agencies.

In December 2014, MediaCom secured the Mars planning business across all segments and in all markets. We followed this by consolidating both planning and buying as of January 2019.

The account win represents a step change in their approach to media planning & execution which Mediacom is driving the agenda for.

About Royal Canin

Founded in France in 1967 by a veterinarian, the Royal Canin Brand is a global leader in pet health nutrition. Unknown to many, Royal Canin belongs to Mars Inc. Mars is one of the biggest family-owned companies in the world, with more than $35 billion in annual sales. Their biggest business is pet care and Royal Canin is their biggest brand together with Pedigree. In an industry that continues to adapt to popular trends, RC has the mission to be known as the reference in health nutrition in pet care. It is a knowledge-based premium brand, that provides the most precise nutritional solution for cats’ and dogs’ health needs. The brand is a global brand that is present in 45+ markets, reaching premium cat and dog owners as well as partnering in B2B with vets and breeders.

At MediaCom, we are running both planning and buying assignments for Royal Canin following the pitch win in 2017. We are working closely with the global team based in South of France. The strategy and the global direction are set by together with the global team.

About Royal Canin & Mars Petcare Structure at MediaCom

Royal Canin and Mars Petcare are separate segments within MARS, both sitting under the Pet Care division.

Currently, Royal Canin account team is made up of 6 people, servicing Global structure to build strategy and governance for the brand across 40+ markets but also Central structure to both plan & buy media across 18 Markets out of London HUB with Connected Execution teams.

Mars Petcare account team is made up of 8 people, servicing as Deployment team for Mars Petcare’s 4 key Blueprint markets – UK, Germany, France & Poland, for more than 8 pet care brands in the portfolio.

In 2021 we are merging the 2 teams together to create a Global Per Care specialist function, containing Brand and Performance experts.

Once fully staffed the team will comprise of 16 people in total, reporting into one Global Engagement Director.