Associate Director, Media Strategy

The ideal candidate is someone who takes initiative, is enthusiastic about inspiring change, and has expertise in media. They should excel in working closely with collaborators from various areas to develop and implement media plans.  The pull through of these strategies requires this self-starter to remain objective while supporting brands and the broader organization in the oversight and performance management of the media agency. 

Role and Responsibilities: 

Media Strategy, Planning, and Execution 

• Serve as the primary internal media point of contact for therapeutic area portfolio, brand leads, US engagement lead, and other cross functional teams  

• Partner with Brand and Media Agency to translate business objectives into media objectives  

• Management and leadership of Media Agency responsible for planning, buying, performance management, and optimization of integrated paid media campaigns  

• Participate in annual brand planning and lead subsequent development of strategic brand insights including the assessment of market, audience, competitive, and campaign insights 

• Ongoing development of AstraZeneca’s media planning competency and proactive implementation across related brands  

• Develops approaches to build joint business partnerships with key media partners that drive efficiencies, create innovation, and enables organization to be future ready 

• Ensures strategies align with latest consumer and media trends and emerging technology 

• Drives cross platform media strategies based on consumer insights, audience segments, business, and brand objectives 

• Maintain an in-depth knowledge of portfolio and brand businesses inclusive of objectives, strategies, goals and market challenges 

Collaboration 

• Collaborate with internal collaborators across Marketing, Omnichannel Strategy, Analytics, Reporting, Regulatory, and Channel Excellence  

• Coordinate media efforts with Omnichannel Strategy and Channel Excellence teams to identify Omnichannel integration opportunities  

• Recommend optimal creative formats and analytics team collaboration to deliver successful media campaigns 

Measurement and Reporting  

• Proactively collaborate with media agency, brand, and other analytics teams to develop a media measurement framework and identify critical metrics.  

• Reviewing in-flight performance to ensure agency teams are optimizing to hit critical metrics and proposing strategy pivots based on performance 

• Champion the implementation of end-to-end analytics solutions that quantifies the contribution of media investment on business goals  

Education, Qualifications, Skills and Experience 

Essential: 

• Bachelor’s Degree 

• At least 6+ years of paid media experience across online (display, online video, paid search) and offline (TV, Print, Out of Home) channels  

• Client relationship / Internal management experience 

• Demonstrated and measurable experience planning, developing, and implementing media plans, ideally cross-channel 

• Knowledge of digital media trends and technologies including programmatic platforms; display, video, social media and mobile advertising; native ad units and content marketing, etc. strongly preferred 

• Demonstrated experience bringing to bear 1st and 3rd party data for targeting and segmentation 

• Experience working in collaborative team settings and liaising between agencies and media naive teams 

• Experience working in a regulated industry a plus 

• Experience working with campaigns targeting multiple customer groups   

• Exceptional communication skills, including listening as well as explaining complex ideas and technologies 

• Independent self-starter with a “plug-and-play” attitude for collaboration 

• Proficient in conducting compelling presentations and organizing effective workshops for high-level colleagues and internal customers 

• Comfortable working in a multinational corporate environment contributing to and prioritizing multiple high-level projects 

Key stakeholders: 

Internal  

• Brand Marketing 

• Omnichannel Strategy  

• Channel Excellence 

• Brand Insights and Advanced Analytics 

• Global Procurement  

External 

• Media Publishers 

• Measurement and other technology partners 

• Media Agency