Senior Strategist; Passport Brand Design

Senior Strategist (Passport Brand Design)
Who We Are

VML, part of WPP, is a leading creative company that combines brand experience, customer experience, and commerce, creating connected brands to drive growth. VML is celebrated for its innovative and human first, award-winning work for blue chip client partners including AstraZeneca, Colgate-Palmolive, Dell, Ford, Microsoft, Nestlé, The Coca-Cola Company, and Wendy's. The agency is recognized by the Forrester Wave
· Reports, as a Leader among Marketing Creative and Content Service Providers, Commerce Services, Global Digital Experience Services, Global Marketing Services and, most recently, Marketing Measurement & Optimization. In addition, VML’s specialist health network, VML Health, is one of the world’s largest and most awarded health agencies. VML’s global network is powered by 26,000 talented people across 55+ markets, with principal offices in Kansas City, New York, Detroit, London, São Paulo, Shanghai, Singapore, and Sydney.

About WPP

WPP is the trusted growth partner for the world’s leading brands. We unite cutting-edge media intelligence and data solutions, world-class creativity, next-generation production, transformative enterprise solutions and expert strategic counselin a single company –powered by exceptional talent and our agentic marketing platform, WPP Open,to help our clients navigate change, capture opportunity and deliver transformational growth. For more information,  .

Senior Strategist, (Passport Brand Design)

Overview

We are seeking a talented Senior Strategist to support a leader brand in a regulated industry. This person will bring strong Brand Strategy and Creative Strategy experience as well as experience in the activation of those strategies across the audience journey. (If you are predominantly another kind of strategist, e.g., CX, content, please be aware that we are prioritizing Brand Strategy and Creative Strategy candidates.)

Role

The ideal candidate is a strategic thinker with advertising agency experience who can move confidently and comfortably between big-picture brand thinking and hands-on campaign development. They should be able to immerse themselves in the business; partner with Creative teams; collaborate closely with Creative, Account and CX teams; and communicate clearly and compellingly with clients.

Responsibilities

• Help define the strategic and creative problems to be solved / opportunities to be seized
• Understand the business, brand and audience goals and KPIs
• Design and conduct research to analyze category, culture, brand, product and audiences
• Optional but preferred:
  The core priority is consumer experience. A nice-to-have is work with health-care professionals (HCPs), especially pharmacists
• Develop audience insights, including tensions to be resolved and needs to be met
• Demonstrate fluency with different types of research (e.g., quant, qual, social listening) and data (e.g., MRI)
• Write Creative Briefs and Activation Briefs that inform and inspire Creative teams
• Work with Creative teams to ensure Brave Ideas, Beautifully Crafted
• Determine audience journeys, including key channels across mass, digital, physical, retail and POS, content, social working in concert with CX experts, clients, and client media agency
• Understand regulatory environments in client partnership to ensure responsible work
• Participate in client meetings, present strategic work, build trusted client relationships
• Work closely with Account and Creative teams

Requirements

• Priority:
  Brand Strategy and / or Creative Strategy
• Must-have:
  Consumer experience. Nice-to-have: HCP experience
• 5+ years experience
• Agency experience
• Demonstrated ability to develop insights, ideas, campaigns, activations — successful candidates will be able to share an existing sample of past work
• Clear, concise, compelling communication skills, both written and oral
• Experience in a regulated industry such as nicotine, healthcare/pharma, financial services, alcohol, gaming, or similar is preferred. Must be comfortable supporting a nicotine account.
• Experience across the channels and touchpoints noted
• Proven ability to work directly with clients

Location

Canada-based candidates only,…