Please note: This a hybrid role located in Chicago, IL. You will have an opportunity to collaborate in-person two to three days a week at our Chicago office while maintaining flexibility for remote work. 

We are looking for an agile Director, Planner to help drive strategy on a variety of accounts and new business opportunities. This role requires a big idea thinker, who understands how to translate consumer insights into actionable creative strategies in a fast-paced and collaborative environment. We are looking for a youth culture expert, with a passion for uncovering trends that shape youth culture. We need someone who is curious, on top of, and involved in what is trending in the youth market and can help design programs that speaks across generations. You have a deep understanding of cultural insights and can turn those insights into a meaningful strategy for our clients.

You are future focused, business minded, and data obsessed. You have a creative sensibility and can use insights to drive innovative earned campaigns. We are looking for a versatile learner, dot connector, who is hyper focused on what is trending and consumer culture.

Our ideal candidate must have a passion for conducting strategic research, framing problems, discovering insights, monitoring trends, inspiring creativity, anticipating questions and creating actionable plans. This role is client facing, will be a relationship-builder, creating meaningful impact for our teams and our clients.

This position will report directly to the EVP of Planning and partner across an integrated team, including creative, media and account management. 

What You Have:

• Demonstrates a strong ability to distill a wealth of information into simple and compelling plans/presentations 
• Desire to conduct research including competitive analysis, trend identification, emerging opportunities, etc.  
• Understands the key trends that drive consumer behavior and affect the way that brands communicate – always living at the intersection of brands, culture, and creativity 
• Develop emotive creative briefs to inspire audience-led, idea-centric strategies that creatives teams can use to develop compelling creative work
• Able to create an insight with supervision, that is actionable, goal-oriented and provides a unique perspective 
• Maintains a clear understanding of client deliverables and their business/communication objectives 
• Produces work that is client-ready 
• Strong sense of personal responsibility and initiative - must be able to work autonomously or in collaboration with other teams, especially the Creator community 
• Comfortable working on multiple projects at one time in a fast-paced, highly collaborative environment 
• Excellent presenter and facilitator, adept at leading meetings with clients and colleagues 

What You Need:

• BA/BS in marketing, business, economics, the sciences or other discipline requiring expertise in statistics and social science; or equivalent
• 7+ years of strategic planning, client facing experience in PR, advertising, or digital marketing
• Deep strategic planning experience, across various client industries, with demonstrated ability to create meaningful impact for clients, and drive business 
• Experience with developing thought leadership pieces on youth culture
• Comfort interpreting several data sources to craft a cohesive narrative
• Proven ability to partner with clients, driving strategy, providing thoughtful counsel, actively listening to clients, and delivering against expectations
• Ability to wow teams and clients with provocative insights and a clear POV
• Master of culture and fluent in the language of the internet
• Curious and future-minded, with an eye for the next big thing
• Experience as a cultural strategist, creating and activating programs, using insights, that speak across generations 
• Keen to leverage data and technology to understand social trends, user behaviors and conversation dynamics
• Deeply familiar with major and emerging social networks, including content best practices, platform functionality & pipeline updates; how platforms are used and how they COULD be used
• Self-starter, with demonstrated ability to identify and manage projects without a lot of oversight
• Must be able to work fast and smart – juggling multiple deliverables at a time and understanding how to apply relevant thinking over multiple projects
• Experience with research tools like Gartner, Stylus, Global Web Index, Comscore, TalkWalker
• Maintain expertise in the vertical market areas of food and non-food consumer packaged goods, across the communications sub-specialties of consumer marketing communications and holistic media measurement
• Excellent communication, writing, and presentation skills

About Us:

Golin is a progressive public relations agency designed to reach a profoundly diverse global market. Our ambition is to not only adapt to the rapidly evolving landscape of AI but to lead the charge. We are committed to upskilling our workforce and integrating AI into our daily work to maximize the value we deliver to our clients.

Together, we discover powerful human truths that bind us, create with bravery, and collaborate inclusively and obsessively. Golin’s 1700 global employees operate across 50+ offices worldwide, allowing us to provide our clients with comprehensive solutions for multi-market, regional and global communications programs.

Our expertise ranges from brand-building and cutting-edge digital content to corporate reputation, healthcare advocacy and measurement. Golin aligns earned-first, data-driven creative with the customer journey through our collaborative G4 Model to deliver maximum impact for clients. Our roster includes many of the largest CPG, retail, food, healthcare technology and consumer service companies in the world.

Salary Range: $94,000 – $165,000

Golin has included the base salary range or hourly rate for this role. Actual compensation offered within the range will depend upon, among other factors: a candidate’s skills, qualifications, and experience; actual ranges for current or former employees in the role; and market considerations.

Any request to schedule an interview and any legitimate offer of employment will only come from an authorized representative of Golin. We will never require an applicant to provide sensitive personally identifiable information in order to conduct an interview.

Golin is an Equal Opportunity Employer – M/F/Veteran/Disability/Sexual Orientation/Gender Identity. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability or protected veteran status.

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