Strategic Planning and Operations Senior Manager

Reporting To: Senior Director AB, Growth Marketing

Department : Marketing

Location: Soho London

Activision Blizzard is seeking an experienced Strategic Planning and Operations Manager for the region. This is a high impact role where you will set a planning vision and roadmap for all media channels to take Activision Blizzards’ regional paid marketing to the next level. The Senior Strategic Planning and Operations Manager will work as an extension of our Global Growth Marketing and Media teams, helping to build the holistic regional media strategy to engage, retain and bring new players to Activision Blizzards’ franchises. This is a fast paced and highly energized environment where you’ll be working with some of the most creative individuals in the industry. So, if you have a passion for entertainment, video games and a pulse on new and creative trends in digital marketing, we encourage you to apply!

Responsibilities:

Manage the media strategy across all Activision Blizzards’ franchises

• Development of the holistic EMEA media strategy in collaboration with the Global Growth Marketing and Media teams.

• Work with the relevant stakeholders and teams to set KPIs for regional campaigns, ensuring performance is monitored closely against goals and any contractual requirements.
• Build and maintain working relationships across all of Activision Blizzards’ franchise teams in region.
• Design and delivery of high-quality, integrated paid media campaigns.
• Understand the commercial requirements in region across Activision Blizzards’ franchises to determine strategies and facilitate internal understanding (this includes holistic budget setting and management of any first party co-funding agreements for the region).
• Performance analysis of our media campaigns for optimization and clear reporting to key stakeholders.

• Contribution to increase awareness, acquisition and performances through media campaigns or initiatives.
• Work with our data scientists to understand what does and doesn’t work.
• Contribution to innovation within own area.
• Manage and maintain relationships with key regional media vendors.

Coordinate and manage activity in collaboration with our partners (both external and internal)

• Being in direct contact with our in-house activation and digital buying teams
• Responsible for any external media agency management (where required).
• Collaboration with all relevant partners (creative agencies, key media owners and internal contacts including Global HQ teams) to ensure the flow of media information.
• Recommendation of guidelines and media processes to improve the performance of our regional campaigns.

• Ensure high-quality work is delivered both internally and from our external partners.

Analyze our media actions and propose strategic recommendations

• Identification of regional "best practices" with a view to sharing experiences with the main stakeholders.
• Defining the KPIs needed to read the performance of our campaigns.

• Ensure visibility and integration of all paid media regional activity.
• Ensure the integration and coherence of the regional media campaign within the holistic Global marketing communication plan.
• Production of high-quality reports, with complex analysis to support regional management decision-making.

Team management

• Lead key regional meetings and provide support to the Global Growth and Media teams on all other meeting preparation and delivery.
• Be comfortable reporting any potential issues or concerns with management, if you believe escalation may be required.
• Act as a regional point of contact and escalation for all the assigned accounts within your team.
• Develop strong cross-team working relationships with key stakeholders.

Requirements

• Degree in advertising, marketing or communications.
• You have 7+ years of experience (agency or client side) building out unique acquisition and testing strategies geared at optimizing conversion, subscription, and revenue:

• Expert knowledge of paid search, social and programmatic.
• Experience of collaborating on a broader holistic media plan (how digital works with traditional and emerging channels in region).

• International media experience is a must.

• Both a strong strategic thinker, with the ability to translate quantitative and qualitative data/insights into strong marketing strategies, and a highly organized “doer” with a data-driven mentality and a bias towards action.
• Top-notch analytical skills with a proven ability to work through data to find opportunities and actionable insights that are not readily apparent and clearly communicate them to a diverse set of stakeholders in a way they will understand.
• Proven ability to leverage multiple data sources to develop hypotheses and execute rapid test and learn strategies.
• Deep expertise of ad/web/email reporting and analytics platforms, such as Google AdWords, Facebook, Google Analytics etc.

• Experienced with channel testing methodology, lifecycle marketing programs and multiple attribution models.
• Strong track record of effective collaboration with creative/brand marketing and product management teams.
• You possess extraordinary communication & presentation skills, with the ability to engage a variety of audiences and deliver impactful presentations at all levels of the organization.
• Work collaboratively under pressure, with experience working on complex, international, large-scale, time-critical projects.
• You contribute consistently and positively in a fast paced, constantly evolving environment and are willing to roll up your sleeves and tackle whatever task is necessary.

• You create, build, and cultivate positive interpersonal relationships, are flexible in nature, able to tackle challenges and still keep a sense of humor.

Pluses

• Passionate gamer with knowledge of Activision Blizzards’ games, products and service

Our World

Our mission, to connect and engage the world through epic entertainment has never been more important. Through communities rooted in our video game franchises we enable hundreds of millions of people to experience joy, thrill and achievement. We enable social connections through the lens of fun, and we foster purpose and a sense of accomplishment through healthy competition. Like sport, but with greater accessibility, our players can find purpose and meaning through competitive gaming.

Video games, unlike any other social or entertainment media, have the ability to break down the barriers that can inhibit tolerance and understanding. Celebrating differences is at the core of our culture and ensures we can create games for players of diverse backgrounds in the 190 countries our games are played.

As a member of the Fortune 500 and as a component company of the S&P 500, we have an extraordinary track record of delivering superior shareholder returns for over 30 years.

Our enduring franchises are some of the world’s most popular, including Call of Duty®, Crash Bandicoot™, World of Warcraft®, Overwatch®, Hearthstone®, Diablo®, StarCraft®, Candy Crush™, Bubble Witch™, Pet Rescue™ and Farm Heroes™. Our sustained success has enabled the company to support corporate social responsibility initiatives that are directly tied to our franchises. As an example, our Call of Duty Endowment has helped find employment for over 80,000 veterans.

Learn more information about Activision Blizzard and how we connect and engage the world through epic entertainment on the company's website, www.activisionblizzard.com.

The videogame industry and therefore our business is fast-paced and will continue to evolve. As such, the duties and responsibilities of this role may be changed as directed by the Company at any time to promote and support our business and relationships with industry partners.

Activision is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, national origin, protected veteran status, or any other basis protected by applicable law and will not be discriminated against on the basis of disability.