Director, Media Planning & Buying

Job Description

Love podcasts? We do too! As the Director, Media Planning & Buying in Sony Music's Global Podcast Division, you will join a dynamic group of creators, producers and business leaders who are passionate about building premium content in the fast-growing podcast space.

In this role, your focus will be to build and lead best-in-class media plans to effectively drive mass awareness and listenership to our rapidly growing slate of shows across true crime, entertainment, pop culture, and music & film, while also cultivating the Sony Music Podcast brand. You will spearhead the planning and execution of innovative 360 media strategies across a robust mix of channels including, but not limited to, podcast platforms, social, digital, television, mobile, print, and out-of-home. You will also be responsible for the management and delivery of all media campaigns on time and within budget.

You will work directly with marketing team leads in New York, Los Angeles and London and will also interface with colleagues across the broader team including research & insights, advertising operations and internal/external production (both in the US and the UK) to identify best practices, create rigorous analytical processes, and establish and implement mechanisms to scale.

You must have a love of podcasts. This role reports to the VP, Marketing in the Global Podcast Division.

What you'll do:

Media strategy and buying:
• Using a heavy insight-based approach, build, create and execute paid media strategies and tactics for the Sony Music Podcast show marketing campaigns
• In collaboration with marketing, set campaign goals and develop media strategies to meet objectives while providing tracking against KPIs
• Strategize with marketing team leads and the subscriptions team to improve and optimize ad campaigns as indicated by demographics, geographic exposure, reach, frequency, duration, and other factors
• Interface directly with networks, affiliates, and partners to develop new advertising programs and secure premium buys across various mediums including in-audio advertising, traditional OOH, paid digital, social, etc.
• Lead negotiations, contract execution, and IO routing for all paid plans and value-in-kind
• Oversee and implement cross-promo campaigns across the Sony Music Podcast internal remnant network
• Ensure that all campaigns are running as planned, pacing correctly and with the proper creative message
• Seek and evaluate strategic media opportunities and serve as a thought-leader on new and innovative ways to reach new audiences and connect deeper with existing listeners

Campaign analysis and tracking:
• Provide comprehensive analysis of performance marketing campaigns and experiments, and make actionable recommendations to senior leadership
• Perform extensive market research to evaluate target audiences and preferred delivery methods
• Develop hypotheses that will positively impact the business and design experiments to validate them
• Oversee post-buy audit and optimization efforts to ensure the integrity and efficiency of media plans
• Monitor and analyze competitive media and marketing strategies

Budget management:
• With a meticulous eye for detail, ensure your campaigns fall within budget by tracking spend, raising purchase orders and liaising with finance
• Plan out multi-show media buys in podcast advertisements

Project and asset management:
• Work collaboratively and efficiently with various marketing, social, research, press, ad ops, sales, production, and internal and external creative teams (both in US and UK) to manage multiple title launches and campaigns

Support of wider Sony Podcasts expansion:
• Support wider team projects designed to build our podcast network and brand

Who you are:
• 10+ years of experience in digital media planning/traditional ad buying/campaign management across all major channels (Programmatic, Search, Social, OOH etc.)
• A demonstrated track record of creating and executing effective marketing campaigns, with demonstrable ROI
• Experience driving direction and alignment with various internal and external cross-functional teams
• Strong ability to negotiate media plan deals
• Fluency with analytics, attribution, and measurement systems
• Experience using Microsoft Excel to manipulate and analyze data and using data and metrics to measure impact and determine improvements / optimization
• Experience presenting metrics and progress to goal to senior leadership
• Experience with managing cross-functional projects
• Excellent organizational, verbal, and written communication skills
• Equally creative and analytical, with exceptional communication skills
• You embrace creativity, aim high and push boundaries
• Passion for podcasts / audio-led entertainment and a desire to continue to build your career in this industry
• Understanding or experience with the podcasting industry a plus
• Media agency experience is a plus

What we give you:
• An opportunity to fuel the creative journey on a global stage
• An investment in your learning & development
• An excellent range of benefits, like private medical cover, a generous pension scheme, life assurance and income protection, plus loads of music biz perkz
• Winter recess (Christmas through New Year's)
• The anticipated annual base salary for this position is $120k to $130k. This range does not include any other compensation components or other benefits that an individual may be eligible for. The actual base salary offered depends on a variety of factors, which may include as applicable, the qualifications of the individual applicant for the position, years of relevant experience, specific and unique skills, level of education attained, certifications or other professional licenses held, and the location in which the applicant lives and/or from which they will be performing the job

Jobcode: Reference SBJ-gxvqeo-3-17-162-247-42 in your application.