Planning Partner

Job Description:

This role combines responsibilities on Carat UK's two key entertainment and cultural accounts: Lionsgate and Molson Coors Brewing Company.

On Molson Coors, the Planning Partners role will ensure the delivery of strategy and portfolio framework through into the annual brand planning. Ensuring that the individual brand campaigns are challenging, innovative and ladder up to the approved north star portfolio framework.

On the Lionsgate account there is huge opportunity to develop exciting, award-winning work, to promote their diverse slate of movie releases. The Planning Partner will work as an extension of the client team to understand and help overcome their challenges with releasing new IP movies in a saturated franchise market.

Molson Coors Brewing Company (MCBC)

Molson Coors are a global beverage company who produce the likes of Carling, Madri, Coors, Cobra, Staropramen, Pravha, Aspall and Rekorderlig. We work with them in the UK and Ireland markets to deliver strategic & effective marketing campaigns to help them drive stand out and growth in a very cluttered alcohol market.

We work closely with Molson Coors partner agencies, Ogilvy for creative and Mars for Customer Activation, to create and deliver inter-agency planning recommendations. On this account there are lots of exciting sub-workstreams which we are looking to pull together and weave more seamlessly into the overarching brand planning.

The planning partner role will be the key role to help us achieve this ambition, becoming the lynchpin to the pull together the bigger strategics project through into planning and activation. Key workstreams include the portfolio framework, the CDP /data strategy as well as challenging status quo of traditional media planning. The client is keen take brave steps in the way they both approach, and behave in media, so it's a great time to join the team and bring this to life.

Key Molson Coors client contacts:

• Strategy Director, MLT
• Frequently connecting with Brand Controllers, Insights Team

Working with:

• No Line manager requirement on this brand
• Working closely with Client Partner, Client MP, Strategy Director, Digital Director and Account Directors. This role is about connecting the workstreams and being the glue that pulls them together - client connection will be at a senior level

Lionsgate

Lionsgate is a mini-major film studio and distributor working within the fun and glitz of the entertainments industry. After some difficult covid impacted years Lionsgate have come back with a bang, recently releasing some indie hits such as Iron Claw, Love Lies Bleeding and Small things like These. The 2025 slate is shaping up with some exciting big releases including Ballerina (a John Wick spin off), Now you See me 3, The Long Walk and The Housemaid. They are a fast-paced client with a busy slate, so we are keen to bring in a strong planner partner who can help the team to deliver impactful, groundbreaking work.

Lionsgate have been a Carat client for 10 years so we are looking for a planning lead who can protect and nurture this long-standing relationship, whilst bringing fresh new thinking to the campaign responses.

With Carat's role as lead agency on the account, we work closely with the client to set strategy for all releases from theatrical cinema launches right through to PVOD and Home Ents, across all media channels. The Carat team work as an extension of the lean Lionsgate team and commit to an in-person status with the client every week. We have a strong team on the account who lead the day to day account management and campaign activations so we are looking for a Partner to compliment this team and help to set the strategic vision and nurture their response planning into activation.

It will come as no surprise that a passion for film would be desired to make the most out of the role, as lots of film viewing is required. A nice perk of the job is getting early screening access to the titles we are working on - who doesn't love a horror movie at 9am in the Soho House!

An enthusiastic approach is required to make the most of this exciting and varied planning role, which delves less into data and brand building, but instead is heavily skewed to strategic audience and impact planning on a brief-by-brief basis.

Key Lionsgate client contacts:

• Head of Marketing, Deputy Head of Marketing
• Frequently connects with other members of the core marketing team, PR team, Sales team, Organic Social

Working with:

• Line Management of Account Director
• Working closely with Client Partner, Client MP, Strategy Director, TSL Partnerships team, various other specialists across the group. This role is heavily client facing but also calls for a high level of internal and cross-functional collaboration.

Planning Partner job description summary:

The purpose of this role is to be the planning lead as either the first point of contact or working alongside the strategy team to deliver connected and holistic planning. You will be required to challenge the status quo and to help the teams and clients navigate market challenges such as alcohol / cert age restrictions whilst still delivering effective planning.

You will be instrumental in spearheading award standard and innovative work for Lionsgate and MCBC.

As a Planning Partner you will be expected to have experience across more than one category and be prepared and confident to hold your own in debates with senior marketers and creative agency personnel, while also being open to learning and applying marketing theory, keeping apace of developments in the media marketplace.

PLANNING PARTNER: KEY ACCOUNTABILITIES & RESPONSIBILITIES

Lionsgate:

• Main planning point of contact facing delivering to Head of Marketing and wider team.

• Remain quality check point and guardian of the strategy into planning.
• Attend all status meetings to help oversee and navigate the fast-paced planning conversations.
• Attend all key campaign briefings to interrogate the requirements to ensure best in class delivery.
• Mentor/ Line Manage the Account Director
• Work with Strategy Director on key release responses to ensure it aligns with clients' objectives and brief
• Work closely with Managing Partner, Client Partner and TSL Partnership to create and deliver award winning work.

Molson Coors:

• Work closely with Head of Strategy to deliver the portfolio planning framework into brand planning.
• Support the Digital Partner in the roll out and testing of the CDP and data strategy approach.
• Support the Strategists and Account Teams with the annual planning wave from a portfolio perspective and continue to challenging the norm.
• Run inter-agency and client workshops.
• Collaborate with Merkle (Dentsu CX agency), Commerce and Retail teams, Ogilvy and other MCBC agencies.
• Input into creative directions and experience frameworks.
• Insight generation
• Define roles for channels.
• Lead innovative thinking in media, comms and partnerships.
• Define KPIs and develop evaluation frameworks.
• Help facilitate MCBCs way of working.

Type of work:

Both brands work in local markets UK&I. Fast paced Ents planning is required on Lionsgate whereas MCBC work in annual planning waves, which kick off in March for the following years planning.

MCBC issue assignment briefs to Dentsu/Carat and the creative agency and expects a channel neutral response first, followed by a recommendation on the key channels and how they work together across the POE ecosystem. On Lionsgate we work as lead agency as they work with several creative agencies depending on the genre of release.

You will need to be comfortable interpreting and distilling quantitative and qualitative research and econometric modelling and including this in your recommendations. You may need to recommend research or insight techniques. You should be comfortable using industry and agency tools and conducting desk research.

What else would I be doing when I'm not working on MCBC and Lionsgate?

Editing and writing award entries.

Working on new business pitches.

Running workshops or brainstorms.

Facilitating or developing internal training

PERSON SPECIFICATION

A Planning Partner/Strategy Lead is expected to:

• Be at ease owning the relationship with senior clients in different marketing disciplines.

• Articulate a strategic vision and ensure it can be implemented with the support of the comms planning lead, market planning lead and relevant specialists within the assigned account team or wider dentsu.
• Be prepared to research and develop/apply alternative planning approaches that support the achievement of client objectives.
• Be an ambassador for the business, connecting across internal and external networks to deliver the operating model and build the brand reputation of dentsu.
• Be self-starting, curious and bold in your approach to bringing change.

Entertainment or alcohol marketing experience is ideal, but not essential.

The ideal candidate would have multi-channel media strategy or planning experience, as well as experience of launching new products and variants.

What else do I need to know?

Lionsgate are based in Fitzrovia and hold a weekly in person status every Tuesdays, which we attend. The Lionsgate team consists of a Strategy Director (on limited responses), 1 Account Director and 1 Account Manager.

Carat's Molson Coors team comprises 3 Strategy Leads, 1 Digital Director, 3 Account Directors and 2 Account Managers. You would sit within the leadership team alongside the Client Partner and Managing Partner. We are responsible for all UK and Ireland planning across all channels, including media partnerships. They are based in Burton on Trent and London - we sometimes travel to these locations for meetings but generally are in Carat/ Ogilvy office.

The Carat London office days are Wednesday and Thursday.

You need to be enthusiastic (or at least curious!) about developments in digital media and gaming. We are looking for a brief maker, not just a brief taker!

#LI-Hybrid #LI-CARAT

Location:
London

Brand:
Carat

Time Type:
Full time

Contract Type:
Permanent]]>