THE DETAILS:

Job Title: Senior Campaign Director
Department: Client Delivery
Reports to: Managing Partner for Client Delivery
Responsible for: Potential for line management responsibilities in future
Hours: Full time
Location: Manchester, Northern Quarter. We operate a Hybrid working policy of ideally minimum 3 days in office per week.

THE AGENCY

Ear to the Ground is a global sport, gaming, and entertainment creative agency with a unique model that sets us apart. We are driven by Fan Intelligence®, our global network of 11,000 influential tastemakers and fans. Our real time insight into what fans truly want, enables us to create compelling work that consistently pushes the boundaries of culture.

We pride ourselves on being the agency that listens better than anyone to solve our clients' challenges, maximise their sport, gaming and entertainment partnerships, and ultimately build brands that lead culture. We have long term partnerships with the likes of PlayStation, New Balance and Coca-Cola.

You can learn more about the agency with a short film here.

THE ROLE:

As a Senior Campaign Director, you are a highly accomplished, strategic account leader and capable of consistently exceptional agency execution, playing a critical role in making us famous for groundbreaking, award winning work at a global level. You will oversee and direct the end to end delivery of a portfolio of the agency's complex client campaigns, ensuring they are executed with unparalleled precision, within budget, and to the absolute highest creative standards. This role demands strategic thinking, not just exceptional project management, but also a proven ability to navigate and resolve intricate cross functional complexities, providing high level stakeholder coordination. 

You will be at the forefront of driving pioneering social first, innovative approaches, leveraging deep, expert level knowledge in earned media and influencer strategies, and consistently contributing to globally recognised award winning work that captures the industry's attention (Cannes, Effies and others). 

You'll have a strong track record and proven capability of delivering award-winning, effective campaigns and client growth and be able to demonstrate this in the interview process. You will be capable of mentoring and guiding teams to high performance, and able to gain the trust of and consult with the most talented, senior marketers in the industry.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES:

Campaign Leadership & Delivery:

• Provide overarching strategic direction and oversight for the planning, flawless execution, and impactful delivery of a portfolio of integrated campaigns, ensuring every element is meticulously aligned with the client’s long term business objectives, overarching brand strategy, and agency best practices.
• Ultimately accountable for team timelines, budgets, and resources across multiple projects or accounts, proactively solving complex challenges and providing high level strategic guidance to ensure campaigns consistently meet or exceed expectations.
• Drive seamless collaboration across creative, delivery, strategy, and media teams, championing a “we win together as a team" culture where all members love the creative journey are working towards a collective, ambitious goal, and actively championing cross departmental efficiencies.
• Champion and celebrate team and project wins. Foster and lead a culture of recognition and high performance, whilst also driving continuous improvement based on learnings.
• Lead and inspire teams to deliver groundbreaking work that shatters client and industry expectations, consistently aiming for major, globally recognised award winning recognition.

• Serve as a senior strategic advisor and primary point of contact for clients, consulting with unparalleled strategic guidance and creating robust, lasting relationships that drive repeat business, significant referrals, and agency wide growth opportunities.
• Collaborate deeply with client partners, talent, external agencies, and internal teams, ensuring absolute alignment on campaign vision and execution to deliver maximum impact, and proactively identifying opportunities for partnerships.
• Oversee and analyse rigorous weekly tracking of client health updates, meticulously logging project risks and client experience actions to guide internal strategic adjustments and inform agency level client relationship strategies.
• Deliver compelling campaign updates, insightful reports, and impactful post campaign analyses to all stakeholders, effectively communicating value and success, and shaping the narrative around our strategic impact.
• Mentor, empower, and strategically develop any direct reports assigned, nurturing their growth and fostering a high performing team, and actively contribute to the professional development of the wider Client Delivery team.

Operational & Financial Management:

• Take overall responsibility for the commercial performance of a portfolio of accounts or major campaigns, constantly seeking opportunities to drive significant growth in margin, repeat business, and recommendation, providing our clients unrivalled strategic value-add through your leadership and consultancy.
• Strategically manage complex campaign budgets, ensuring exceptional cost efficiencies whilst upholding creative integrity and optimising for maximum client and agency ROI.
• Ensure comprehensive weekly reporting on projects, maintaining a clear oversight of performance and progress across your portfolio, as well as providing expert advice on critical risk controls and mitigation strategies.
• Lead agency wide capacity planning and forecasting initiatives with the Head of Campaign Delivery, optimising team resource allocation for maximum effectiveness across the department.
• Proactively identify systemic potential risks and implement innovative, agency level solutions to mitigate project roadblocks, ensuring smooth and successful campaign delivery across the board

Creative & Strategic Collaboration:

• Effectively partner with Creative and Strategy to expertly unite commercial focus with strategic and creative ambition. Active designing-out and prevention of overservicing through conscious and effective project design, while ensuring campaign concepts translate into effective, social first executions that resonate deeply with audiences and lead culture and optimise agency profitability.
• Work hand in hand with strategy teams, integrating cutting edge insights and data into campaign planning, demonstrating deep expertise in earned media and influencer strategies.
• Ensure all campaign outputs not only align with the brand’s creative vision and market positioning but consistently push boundaries and embrace new tech.
• Collaborate with the client growth team, identifying and ensuring we are capitalising on opportunities for agency growth expansion and new business.
• Consistently think beyond conventional media, embracing new technologies and demonstrating how they can fuel proactivity and campaign innovation (creative use of AI in campaigns is a bonus)

KEY REQUIREMENTS

Our ideal successful candidate will have: 

• 9+ years of extensive experience in campaign/project management within an industry-leading creative, advertising or marketing agency, with a consistent, proven track record of directly leading or significantly contributing to multiple, high profile award winning campaigns e.g. Cannes, Effies, or other major global industry awards.
• A mastery of integrated marketing campaigns, with unparalleled deep expertise in social first strategies, earned media, influencer marketing, digital, experiential, and content production, consistently thinking beyond traditional ATL and demonstrating future forward vision.
• Exceptional executive level leadership and stakeholder management skills, with significant experience handling executive clients and global partners, able to hold strategic ground with the best marketers and business leaders in the industry.
• A proven ability to strategically manage multiple concurrent, highly complex, high stakes projects or a significant client portfolio simultaneously in a fast paced environment, demonstrating consistently exceptional agency execution and strategic problem solving at an enterprise level.
• Superior financial acumen, with extensive experience overseeing multi million pound campaign budgets and strategic resource planning, with a clear focus on driving substantial growth in margin, repeat business, and recommendation across a portfolio of accounts.
• A passion for staying ahead of industry trends and embracing new technologies, fuelling proactivity; demonstrable experience in pioneering and implementing AI in campaigns is a significant advantage.
• A deep passion for sport, culture, and compelling storytelling is a significant plus.
• A capable leader, dedicated to growing talent and personal growth.
• The ability to commute to central Manchester.

OUR CULTURE

We are dedicated to making Ear to the Ground an amazing place to work where people grow, develop and thrive. We pride ourselves on our dynamic and exciting culture, excellent support of staff and fantastic benefits package. We have made it our mission to lead the way in being an inspiring, future-thinking, creative agency and are invested in our people because they are the ones that will make that happen.

Some of our benefits include:

• 🕒 Flexible & hybrid working
• 🎉 Birthday off
• 👶 Workplace nursery benefit
• 👩‍👧‍👦 Enhanced maternity & paternity
• 🏥 Private health insurance
• 🤒 Enhanced sick leave
• 🚴‍♂️ Cycle to Work scheme
• 📈 Personal development coaching
• + more!