SVP, Group Account Director (NEW)

The SVP, Group Account Director works with the Executive Leadership Team in support of all advertising, marketing and business efforts for the accounts. This role is responsible for collaborating, leading and inspiring teams in an effort to provide great work for clients across multiple marketing channels. The SVP, Group Account Director manages and leads a team to bring creative and strategic thinking to every media experience.

The SVP, Group Account Director builds strong teams and partnerships, establishes communication and responsibilities cadence across all internal teams and clients for which he/she is responsible. They should be strategic, disciplined, an innovative thinker and have a broad understanding of traditional and digital media, marketing research, content marketing, social marketing and analytics.

Responsibilities

Overall

• Play a key role in all advertising, marketing and business efforts for the account
• Collaborate with and lead agency partners and marketing team to ensure creative cohesion across channels and deliver on strategy, deadlines and budget management
• Monitor performance and impact of all programs/platforms to maximize effectiveness
• Develop relationships with client’s senior level counterpart and jointly handle unfamiliar problems, situations or issues
• Responsible for client discovery process (gathering all marketing information and historical learnings)
• Understand the client’s marketing objectives and develop measurements for ROI, ROO and others as needed
• Responsible for ensuring clients’ media and marketing needs are addressed and analyzed in order to develop an effective media strategy
• Maintain awareness of new media, relevant industry and market trends; develop analyses and reports regarding those trends; and communicates to clients appropriate action steps regarding those trends
• Assist in developing and presenting annual client P&L, compensation agreements, and oversees account profitability

Account Stewardship

• Work with all agency departments to monitor goals are being met
• Work to develop effective policies and procedures to keep ahead of changing client needs
• Manage internal staff in creating strategic direction, demographic and market analysis and recommendations on national and local media plans including traditional, social and digital channels that drive traffic and awareness resulting in growth in system transactions and sales
• Monitor and recommend changes to Agency resources on account, as appropriate

Creative

• Client contact during product selection and strategy focus meetings for all creative projects (i.e. TV, Radio, Print, POP, Outdoor, Digital, Social)
• Participate in the development of annual/quarterly creative strategies (Present to client as needed
• Work hand-in hand with Creative Team in exploring new creative concepts and provide ideas/input
• Work closely with Creative Director in the production of ground-up agency work
• Attend TV shoots as necessary
• Work with strategic planning in developing creative briefs
• Consult with with VP, Operations on legality of concepts and creative product
• Monitor quality, timeliness and cost efficiency of Agency creative product
• Monitor that all agency communications are:
• True to brand initiative / creative brief
• Appropriate in tone
• True to the targeted consumer
• Consistent with campaign objectives / tone

Media

• Monitor media functions (planning & buying) from Media partner agency (OMD) to deliver desired results. Recommend changes to planning / buying process and resources, as necessary
• Work with Media Director with annual planning process, overseeing development of strategic direction, guidelines and budget parameters for plan
• Work with media departments (Planning / Buying) in development of new and added-value media ideas
• Oversee annual, quarterly and monthly content and media calendars to manage and plan specific, timely marketing campaigns

Marketing/Advertising

• Participate in future planning and idea generation
• Provide strategic direction and formulate innovative solutions to existing marketing and advertising problems
• Monitor plan development
• Work with Account Directors in development of marketing and advertising plans (annual marketing plans, opportunity plans, creative direction, etc.)
• Work with Account Directors and Regional Teams in development of new product launch plans
• Work with Field promotional team in development and presentation of promotional ideas
• Develop and present various plans to client stakeholders, as appropriate
• Monitor HQ and Regional work to help secure desired brand scorecard measures. Work with strategic planning to help accomplish this
• Work with strategic planning to provide relevant/up-to-date market profile analysis and information for their markets

Strategic Planning:

• Work, as needed, with strategic planning group to meet the research and planning needs of national and regional offices

Agency Integration

• Foster environment of shared information and resources
• Develop a close working relationship with Branding agency, OMD and any other partner agencies
• Work with branding agency in exchanging marketing and advertising ideas and information
• Work with Zimmerman's Chief Operating Officer to develop and maintain consistent and efficient processes and communication

Financial

• Assist in development of annual P&L budgets
• Assist in providing accurate and timely annual/quarterly Agency billing projections to Omnicom

Contract

• Assist in development of staffing analysis for annual contract discussions
• Assist in development of annual staffing recommendation

Staffing

• Monitor and make recommendations to ensure staffing needs on account are met
• Maintain strong ties for recruiting best personnel
• Cultivate and maintain relationship with HQ Agency staff

Training

• Assist in development and implementation of training programs Agency-wide

Office Management

• Work with Human Resources, IT and Accounting departments to help ensure the needs of team are met

Agency Management

• Fulfill role in various meetings by providing input, ideas and plans, as appropriate
• Play key role in the advancement of Agency-owned subsidiaries

New Business

• Work with Executives in new business efforts
• Identify and facilitate business-building efforts across the country

Requirements

• Bachelors Degree in Marketing, Advertising, Communications or relevant, equivalent experience
• 10 years experience as a Group Account Director in a full service agency
• At least 3 years of client service leadership experience, preferably brand or direct marketing experience at an advertising agency or client company, or product management at a client company
• Proven leadership abilities and managerial experience as a disciplined team leader.
• Possess a thorough understanding of the overall media environment in addition to the Client(s) industry and business
• A strong account management background, including past experience managing client accounts and supervising account teams
• Success in presenting strategic solutions and POVs that engage consumers and build brands; proven ability to orchestrate large-scale programs across multiple platforms
• Experience working collaboratively within a multi-disciplinary coalition of agency partners
• Comfortably and effectively interact with senior leadership
• Marketer of today with sound, hands-on integrated marketing experience
• Great relationship building qualities
• Strong coaching and mentoring skills
• Experience identifying superior business building opportunities
• Proven ability to manage multiple tasks while working independently
• Strong attention to detail
• A strong sense of urgency and commitment to get the job done quickly and with high quality
• Excellent communication skills, both written and verbal, with people at all levels of an organization