Creative Account Director - Bryanston at Publicis Groupe

The Account Director will be responsible for:

Management of through-the-line and digital campaigns and communication on a day-to-day basis for their relevant brands.

Management of client expectations, and service delivery by being a focal point for day-to-day interaction and driving executional excellence.

Brand custodian of their client brands.

Specific Responsibilities:

Leadership & Team Work

• Involvement in strategy development and implementation for the growth of the agency
• Source of leadership to junior staff in your portfolio.
• Actively look to maintain and build positive working relationships across departments internally with Traffic, Creative, Strategy and Power of One agency partners.
• Identify and motivate new ways of working, both creatively and operationally
• Become a role model for junior staff across departments.
• Support team development and project planning
• Conduct appraisals for junior staff (if applicable)
• Contribute to and participate in personal development activities for junior staff (i.e. via coaching, workshop development etc, career planning).
• Manage up – ensure your seniors are abreast of all activity on the account and empower them to support you through open lines of communication

Client services

• Take ownership in client meetings and presentations, managing meeting protocols, agenda, etc.
• Ownership of your portfolio and be able to present work in the absence of Strategy or Creatives should it be required.
• Ensure status is consistently up-to-date and correct
• Ensure that all meetings have thorough agendas, driving a productive outcome
• Ensure that contact reports are delivered timeously (within 24 hours of the meeting) with key deliverables and then drive out those deliverables to the agreed timings.
• Plan and participate in client review meetings with team
• Develop a consulting / advisory capability with client wherever possible
• Have direct contact with the client on a daily basis and foster a solid relationship.
• Be consistently responsive and accessible to your client and team at all times (within reason).
• Have tough and honest conversations with your client to enable the agency team to deliver excellence and to create trust
• Have an excellent relationship with clients where they can rely on you, you proactively update them, and you assist them in delivering their requirements on time by reminding them as required
• Have the ability to manage all kinds of personalities and always strive to get the best out of each individual
• Have an excellent knowledge understanding of the client, the agency, the strategy and the process in order to deliver efficiently and to the highest quality.
• Ensure that the right people have been included in client meetings to support the outcome of the meeting and that everyone is prepared and aligned
• Aprais: Ensure you are consistently driving delivery to improve client APRAIS scores with a target above 76% by year end.
• Ensure ownership of NESTLÉ APRAIS Action plans and motivate the team to deliver against the necessary actions.

Account Management, Project Management and Strategic Thinking and Planning

• Work with Traffic and Production to produce timing plans for all jobs and campaigns in order to drive on time delivery.
• Write excellent briefs with full clarity on all requirements and inspire strategy, creative, production, development to do great work.
• Know the status of each of your jobs in the system at all times.
• Communicate with excellence, maturity, intent and professionalism when writing or speaking.
• Have excellent self-management, with thorough to-do lists and personal organization which supports your ability to be efficient and effective in your job.
• Work together with your full team across Traffic, Strategy, Creative, Digital, Production, Development, etc. to deliver high quality work
• Ensure you check all studio output against the brief and ensure that the right people have approved all work before it is sent to client.
• Ensure attention to detail against brand guidelines, strategy and brief expectations.
• Manage tight deadlines while adhering to processes.
• Seamlessly manage multiple stakeholders across multiple brands under the guidance of Group Account Director and Business Director.
• Take full ownership of every job that comes through you – ensure that every job is measured against client requirements, agreed strategy and on-brand.
• Consider the impact of any given change briefed by client on other elements in a campaign or other jobs in the system – this might be a timing impact, it might be a strategic impact, it might require more work on other elements / jobs
• Have an opinion and be solution-orientated.
• Be prepared to work long hours as and when is necessary in order to deliver according to the deadline and to support the broader team
• Have an opinion and be solution-orientated
• Keep abreast of what is happening in the market (broad communication trends and client competitor work) in order to add additional value to your client’s business

Finance

• Assume accountability for financial aspects of cost management on client retainers and projects; aware of financial status of accounts at all times.
• Management and delivery of monthly client recons.
• Identify early account problems and act / advise solutions, in conjunction with line manager
• Effectively manage own time and that of junior staff / resources
• Accurately record timesheets on a weekly basis.
• Understand what jobs are in scope and out-of-scope to ensure that costs are raised accurately and upfront as required.
• Track out of scope jobs against recon document and upload for BUD.
• Ensure that your billings are completed by billing cut off each month.
• Ensure that client CEs are approved before any supplier POs are raised.

Excellence in Digital Delivery

• Maintain the integrity of the creative and digital strategy and work throughout the campaign accordingly.
• Understand digital best practice, platforms and specs and schedule regular alignments with digital partners (Meta, TikTok, Google etc..)
• Keep a finger on the pulse of tactical trends and opportunities to leverage with client.

Business Development

• Seek and develop opportunities for organic growth of existing business
• Demonstrate strong proposal writing and pitch preparation skills in conjunction with Director
• Demonstrate advanced presentation and influencing skills internally, with PO1 agencies and with client.
• Hold in-depth knowledge of competitive landscape
• Drive proactive opportunities out of strategy and creative teams.
• Build high-level analytical and research skills

Culture

• Support company culture; actively seek new, smarter ways of doing things.
• Be seen as an ambassador for the company.
• Drive a positive agenda internally and externally.
• Join in the agency culture to build strong relationships across the business