Associate Director - Engagement Strategy

Company description

Digitas Health is the modern creative agency that takes on the biggest moments in healthcare, raises the standard of creative, and connects people, partners, and ideas to create work that earns its place in culture. Purpose-built for today’s complex and evolving landscape, we partner with some of the world’s largest healthcare brands to do big things by moving faster, connecting deeper, and unlocking new possibilities at the intersection of creativity, data, technology, and empathy. Guided by our purpose, Connected for Good, and fueled by a vibrant, magnetic culture—we deliver meaningful work that drives relevance, changes behavior, and creates lasting impact, always grounded in humanity, not just technology. As part of Publicis Health and Publicis Groupe, we bring together entrepreneurial energy with the scale, stability, and depth of one of the world’s leading communications networks.

At Digitas Health, what sets us apart isn’t just who we work with, it’s how we work and how it feels to be here. Our culture attracts curious, driven people who want to make a difference and be part of something bigger. Our teams are intentionally crafted across disciplines, perspectives, and experience levels, bringing strategy, creativity, data, and technology together from the start. We believe the best ideas come from curiosity, collaboration, and healthy debate and we expect people here to be thoughtful, engaged, and eager to shape what’s next. If you’re energized by complexity, motivated by impact, and excited to help redefine how healthcare connects with people, we’d love to meet you!

Overview

We’re looking for an Associate Director, Engagement Strategy who thrives at turning complexity into clarity. The Associate Director is a leader of strategic workstreams who independently develops engagement strategies by synthesizing research, data, audience needs, and channel insights into clear, actionable recommendations. This person manages complex workstreams with minimal oversight, proactively drives strong delivery, and effectively manages up to ensure alignment.

The ideal candidate combines analytical thinking with strong strategic storytelling. They understand the distinct needs and behaviors of DTC, HCP, and Patient Services audiences and can translate those differences into connected strategies across the broader healthcare journey.

Responsibilities

Research & Insights

• Integrate audience, behavioral, cultural, market, CRM, media, and performance data to develop meaningful insights.
• Identify patterns and emerging trends that reveal new engagement opportunities.
• Translate complex research into clear audience implications and actionable strategic recommendations.
• Leverage AI-enabled signals and tools to deepen audience understanding, accelerate synthesis, and strengthen strategic development.
• Work closely with Data and Analytics partners to validate insights and prioritize the opportunities most likely to drive impact.

Audience Fluency

• Develop audience-centered strategies across DTC, HCP, and Patient Services programs.
• Understand the distinct needs, motivations, barriers, and behaviors of patients, caregivers, healthcare professionals, and Patient Services team members.
• Translate audience insights into relevant engagement approaches, journeys, experiences, and activation strategies.
• Find opportunities to connect experiences across audiences and stages of the healthcare journey while preserving the distinct role each audience plays.
• Consider the needs of underserved or harder-to-reach audiences when shaping engagement recommendations.

Strategy Development

• Independently lead assigned engagement strategy workstreams from initial framing through client-ready recommendations.
• Develop strategic briefs, POVs, audience frameworks, journeys, engagement plans, and activation strategies.
• Connect brand strategy to engagement strategy through clear rationale and audience understanding.
• Turn insights into actionable frameworks that guide creative, content, media, CRM, experience, and Patient Services planning.
• Partner with Data and Analytics teams to establish performance indicators, measurement approaches, and test-and-learn plans.
• Design strategies that account for AI-enabled discovery, personalization, and changing audience behavior.

Channel and Ecosystem Strategy

• Apply channel expertise to develop connected, insightful engagement recommendations.
• Map how paid, owned, earned, CRM, media, social, service, and emerging channels work together across patient and HCP journeys.
• Translate audience needs into clear channel roles, sequencing, and strategic guidance.
• Write and socialize channel-specific recommendations that equip creative, media, technology, and experience teams to implement the strategy.
• Use channel and performance data to identify barriers, motivations, and opportunities for optimization.
• Understand how AI is changing brand discovery, content engagement, and expectations across audiences and channels.

Communication and Client Partnership

• Communicate proactively and strategically, anticipating team member questions, needs, decisions, and risks.
• Present insights and recommendations clearly to client and internal audiences.
• Tailor strategic narratives and level of detail based on the audience and business context.
• Flag risks, dependencies, and potential misalignment before they affect delivery.
• Position Engagement Strategy as both a strong internal partner and a trusted external partner to clients.
• Use AI tools responsibly to strengthen synthesis, storytelling, and communication effectiveness.

Teamwork and Collaboration

• Build productive relationships across Brand Strategy, Data and Analytics, Social Strategy, Creative, Media, CRM, Technology, Experience, Patient Services, Account, and Project Management teams.
• Clearly communicate the Engagement Strategy approach and its implications to cross-functional partners.
• Balance strong strategic advocacy with openness to collaboration and iteration.
• Support junior strategists through guidance, partnership, and constructive feedback.
• Help teams identify the right collaborators and expertise needed to solve complex engagement challenges.  
• Contribute to an inclusive, curious, and problem-solving team culture.  

Management and Ownership

• Manage complex strategic workstreams independently from intake through delivery.
• Plan sequencing, dependencies, inputs, reviews, and decision points across deliverables.
• Proactively manage priorities while raising to Directors and VPs when senior input or alignment is needed.
• Take responsibility for strategic quality, delivery, and outcomes.
• Adjust the strategic approach based on new information, team member feedback, or performance results.
• Balance speed, rigor, and business needs across multiple assignments.

Qualifications

• Approximately 5 to 8 years of experience in Engagement Strategy, communications planning, customer experience, digital strategy, consulting, brand strategy, marketing, or a related rigor.
• Experience developing strategies for healthcare audiences, with demonstrated fluency across DTC, HCP, and/or Patient Services.
• Strong understanding of the distinct audience journeys, engagement needs, and communication considerations within healthcare.
• Proven ability to translate research, data, and audience insights into clear strategic recommendations.
• Experience developing strategic briefs, POVs, audience journeys, activation frameworks, engagement plans, and channel recommendations.
• Strong understanding of omnichannel marketing and how paid, owned, CRM, media, social, service, and emerging channels work together.
• Strong writing, presentation, storytelling, and facilitation skills.
• Ability to lead multiple strategic workstreams with minimal oversight while knowing when to manage up.
• Experience partnering effectively across integrated, multidisciplinary teams.
• Working knowledge of AI-enabled tools and their responsible application to research, synthesis, strategy, and communication.
• Healthcare, pharmaceutical, wellness, or other regulated-category experience preferred.

Additional information

Our Publicis Groupe motto “Viva La Différence” means we’re better together, and we believe that our differences make us stronger. It means we honor and celebrate all identities, across all facets of intersectionality, and it underpins all that we do as an organization. We are focused on fostering belonging and creating equitable & inclusive experiences for all talent.

Publicis Groupe provides robust and inclusive benefit programs and policies to support the evolving and diverse needs of our talent and enable every person to grow and thrive. Our benefits package includes medical coverage, dental, vision, disability, 401K, as well as parental and family care leave, family forming assistance, tuition reimbursement, and flexible time off.

If you require accommodation or assistance with the application or onboarding process specifically, please contact [email protected].

All your information will be kept confidential according to EEO guidelines.

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Compensation Range: USD $81,225.00 - USD $116,655.00/Annually. This is the pay range the Company believes it will pay for this position at the time of this posting. Consistent with applicable law, compensation will be determined based on the skills, qualifications, and experience of the applicant along with the requirements of the position, and the Company reserves the right to modify this pay range at any time. Temporary roles may be eligible to participate in our freelancer/temporary employee medical plan through a third-party benefits administration system once certain criteria have been met. For regular roles, the Company will offer medical coverage, dental, vision, disability, 401k, and paid time off. The Company anticipates the application deadline for this job posting will be 1/11/2027.