Job title: Strategy Director
Responsible to: VP, Global Insight & Partner Innovation
Department: Universal Music for Brands, UMG (New Business)
Location of work: 4 Pancras Square, Kings Cross
Music is Universal
It’s the passionate and dedicated team at Universal Music who help make us the world’s leading music company. From A&R to finance, legal to digital, sales to marketing, Universal Music is the place to grow and develop your career within a truly commercial and innovative business that leads in everything it does.
Everyone is welcome to apply for our roles, and we are determined to ensure that no applicant or employee receives less favourable treatment because of gender, race, disability, sexual orientation, religion, belief, age, marital status, background, pregnancy or caring responsibilities. We also recognise the importance of diversity of thought within our teams and are fully committed to embracing the talents of people with autism, dyslexia, ADHD and other forms of neurocognitive variation.
We will always seek to make appropriate adjustments to recruitment, workplaces, and work processes to be fully inclusive to people with different needs and working styles. If you need us to make any reasonable adjustments for you from application onwards, including alternatives to the online form or to disclose a neurocognitive condition, please email UniversalMusicCareers@umusic.com
The A Side: A Day in The Life
UMG’s Global Insight & Consultancy team manages the most powerful and effective data sets and research capabilities for brand partnerships in the music industry. As well as utilising sales, commercial / partner data, and social media analytics, the Global Insight & Consultancy team manages extensive consumer survey data from around the world, delivering unique detail into evolving attitudes and behaviours of today’s music consumers.
This role is based in London and will primarily support UMG’s global New Business teams, reporting directly to the VP, Global Insight & Consultancy and supporting the team to create strategically led, meaningful partnerships between artists and brands.
The Insight & Consultancy team help create impactful partnerships that utilize data to inform the type of content and activations different music fans want based on the artist and/or brand. We believe insight-based approaches allow us to build deeper, more collaborative and longer-term relationships with brand partners.
This role is responsible for developing strategic direction for brands entering the music space. Its primary focus will be to translate primary insight into actionable strategic and creative direction by designing project approaches and collaborating with internal teams to formulate strategic recommendations and clear paths to market.
The B Side: Skills & Experience
Be Commercial
- Driving active partnership with clients on an ongoing basis, maintaining the highest standards of output and confidently delivering presentations to senior client audiences
- Lead the delivery of pitches & research (primary & secondary), putting strategic thinking at the heart of the project to inform business development and brand strategies
- Engage in compelling business storytelling to ensure insight inspires strategic decision making
- Develop strategic positioning frameworks in order to best articulate a brands purpose in music
- Identify and author thought leadership pieces to establish UMG’s leadership position in the music and entertainment space
Be Data-Driven
- Leverage primary and secondary data sources to identify market trends and customer insights, and translate these into actionable brand ideas and strategies
- Extract insights from complex research, identifying the implications and ideas for brand growth
- Build thought provoking insight narratives that fuel creative thinking, trend frameworks, immersion sessions and cultural perspectives
Be Collaborative
- Work in highly collaborative & cross-functional team environment
- Aligns on the creative process, working closely with Creative Director and team to ensure solutions are on brief
- Demonstrate sensitivity to local market culture and dynamics whilst providing regional and global solutions to brands
Person Specification
Necessary
- Advanced Word, Excel and PowerPoint skills (or similar)
- Can analyse a problem from multiple perspectives and reason potential ways forward – thinks laterally to solve a challenge
- An open, collaborative mindset, demonstrating proven ability to generate strategic recommendations for clients that impact their long-term goals and solve business problems
- Confident in leading pitches with an experienced understanding of different client outcomes and the paths to achieving them
- Has an expert understanding of how people interact with channels, technology, and culture and how those behaviours can feed into strategic opportunities for clients
- Calm under pressure and can handle tricky briefs, difficult questions and challenging clients
- Knowledgeable about industry topics and research, from campaign case studies to seminal studies which are backbone of marketing effectiveness
- Great presentation and communication skills including storytelling
- The ability to structure and manage different and complex workstreams
- Strong internal communication and team spirit
- Effective communicator with proven negotiating skills
- Strong collaborative skills to deliver results for the team
- Proven effectiveness in project design as well as project leadership; including qualitative and quantitative measurements
- Ability to facilitate large groups in a workshop environment
- Sets high standards of self and others; proactive approach to opportunities
- Experience in brand or creative strategy insight and analysis
- Experience in managing and leveraging a strong / major brand
- Strong Qual and Quant experience (or similar)
- Strong relationship development and the ability to work in a large multi-platform sales organisation
- Track record of dealing with senior-level marketers and agency clients
- Experience working with multiple media
- Project management experience in a relevant environment
- Proven experience of dealing and influencing senior management across multiple lines of business
Bonus Tracks: Your Benefits
- Group Personal Pension Scheme (between 3% and 9%)
- Private Medical Insurance
- 25 paid days of annual leave
- Interest Free Season Ticket Loan
- Holiday Purchase scheme
- Dental and Travel Insurance options
- Cycle to Work Scheme
- Salary Sacrifice Cars
- Subsidised Gym Membership
- Employee Discounts (Reward Gateway)
Just So You Know…
The company presents this job description as a guide to the major areas and duties for which the jobholder is accountable. However, the business operates in an environment that demands change and the jobholder’s specific responsibilities and activities will vary and develop. Therefore, the job description should be seen as indicative and not as a permanent, definitive and exhaustive statement.
