Hiring - Business Director

INTRODUCTION TO CRAFT

Craft Media London launched in 2018 with the intention of filling the strategic hole

that exists between media and creative agencies. We focus solely on

communication strategy plugging into the planning teams at creative agencies or

clients directly to help determine exactly what comms needs to do in order to

meet business objectives. We had noticed (and don’t tell them this….) that creative

agency planning wasn’t business rigorous enough so ideas were just that, ideas.

And media agencies were overly focused on the commercial numbers which

resulted in bland planning with no creative leap. So, we sit in the middle, acting as

an interpreter and ensuring that we deliver campaigns that are both effective and

efficient.

We are a small specialist strategic agency. This is important as it means that we

can get to the answer faster than most agency teams. It means that we don’t

have to send a squad of people to a meeting each with their own areas of

expertise. We can give you an immediate point of view based on years of

experience rather than waiting for a piece of analysis to be done. It also means

that we absolutely know our stuff. We have a reputation as the Crafty team who

get to grips with complicated comms challenges, give creative agencies an

opportunity to create great and different work and who play nicely alongside

every partner.

If media buying is needed, we have a relationship with all the independent

agencies (and some of the networks) which we partner with to provide this

specialist.

Craft provides strategic direction and planning and we help clients identify the

right agency for them and they would focus on delivery/buying.

Small but mighty

We are small but have already started to make our mark, working with startups

like Smol and Ruggable, through to established brands which needed some

strategic love – like Fever Tree, Selfridges, Wagamama & Interflora through to the

biggest brands on the globe – Deloitte, Twinings & Brewdog.

We never know what the next brief might be….

Business Director

This role is to take upon a leadership position with our most important retained

clients and a key role in managing a growing team of Planners.

As we’ve grown, we’re now updating our Planning Team structure to be set up as

‘pods.

'Business Directors will lead a pod of clients; there will be retained clients in

these pods and projects will be assigned based on capacity and Planner ‘fit.'

It is a role which requires you to balance between being ‘in the weeds’ enough to

know what’s going on and being involved in the day to day whilst demonstrating

leadership so that clients feel they can share feedback and have an escalation

point.

This role requires you to take a strategic view of our client relationship, identifying

areas we need to improve and also identifying opportunities for us to leverage

additional services.

While this is a client leadership position it will require you to dive into day-today

business when required e.g. to cover off holidays or during intense campaign

periods. We also expect our BDs to be strong communications planners so they

can recognise and contribute to our high standard of work.We want to do work that makes others jealous, which means we need to do things

that they can’t or won’t.

And we need to do it with style.

Key Requirements:

Client Relationship Management:

o Maintain the highest levels of client service across their accounts

where they are the account lead or support.

o Have oversight of the client relationships across retained clients and

projects within your ‘pod.

’

o Keeping an eye on our scope and general relationship health of clients

within your pod - making sure we are servicing them well enough and

there is space and time for them to feedback regularly.

o Make sure we are making the right connections in their business -

feeding into insight, broader marketing, editorial teams etc. where

relevant

Leading on major projects: Annual strategy, reviews, measurement plan

etc. And provide regular feedback and guidance to the wider team about

how we can maintain best in class client service

Quality: To maintain the highest standard of our planning output, to coach,

teach, amend and create plans that we can be proud of. They are

responsible for raising the quality of the agency’s output, ensuring that

Craft’s planning output is always the most effective and brilliant iteration of

the campaign strategy.

Inter-Agency Relationships: They own the relationship with Craft’s buying

agency partners, maintaining contact with relevant senior stakeholders and

facilitating bi-annual check ins.

Strong Planning skills: Ability to recognise and produce high quality

communications responses across paid, owned, earned and shared

touchpoints.

Team Management: Practical management of Planning pod

Being a point of escalation for line management challenges

Having a birds’ eye view on team holidays, keeping an eye on how

they’re phased and clash management.

In addition, the role of Business Director will also manage our relationship with our

key Media Buying Partners.

The appropriate SLA is in place to ensure that there is a seamless flow

between Craft and our partners

To be the first point of contact for any issues to be escalated to.

To provide constructive feedback to maintain healthy relationships

The Crafty Planning Team:

At Craft we have the ambition of becoming the best planning team in the UK. It’s a

big ambition that we will judge by our ratio of awards to staff numbers versus

other agencies.

Our mindset can be summarised as ‘Taking one step further’

This doesn’t mean pushing every part of every plan and spending 1000 years to get to an answer. It means finding an opportunity to make at least one part of the plan better than it

would have been, every time.

There are three key planning behaviours supporting our mindset. By making these

a part of our day to day, we produce world class campaigns:

We build around micro-insights: Whilst the big game changing

sledgehammer insights are important, we don’t stop there. We keep

investigating to find ‘micro’ insights that may affect how we execute a plan,

and weave these throughout.

We are audience obsessives: We identify interesting target audiences,

avoid lazy demographic platitudes and use a diverse range of data sources

to complete our understanding. Then we bring them to life through brilliant

storytelling.

We foster a culture of creativity: We reject the notion that creativity is

something people either have or they don’t. We use a number of techniques

to come up with ideas that get campaigns truly noticed.

Key behaviours:

They lead by example, ensuring that their own planning output and

contribution is of exemplary quality

They bring high levels of enthusiasm to everything they do, and care about

making a difference to the business

They can decisively determine which tasks to own and which to delegate to

the other members of the planning team - always remembering that at

Craft, we’re all builders, not surfers.

As you settle into your role, we encourage you to lean into understanding as much

about your client’s business as possible - the structure of the organisation, how

they make money, the relationships with their other agency partners. All of this

brings us closer to our clients and will help build and maintain really strong

relationships.

Experience

7+ years of experience within a media / communications agency. Measure of Success

This role will be judged against the specific delivery of the outlined tasks

By 360 degree feedback from key client personnel

From 360 degree feedback from Craft

From 360 degree feedback from Media Agency key contacts.

Process

Send CV & note summarising why you would like to work at Craft to

Jen@craftmedia.london

Shortlist invited to have a 30 min chat with one of the Partners

Shortlist will be given a short brief to demonstrating your thinking style

Present to Hiring Manager & Founders

Final Selection

Timing

It is important we find the right person for this role so we are not putting time

pressure on needing this to be filled by a date. We would rather give ourselves

time to find the right person.

Salary bracket & benefits

This role would be offered from £65k - £90k depending on experience

You would be eligible for the Craft Pension, AXA health cover and the Company

bonus scheme

IT and equipment

You will be provided with an Apple Laptop, additional accessories required will be

supplied on request.We work primarily on Google Drive, with Slack, we also provide Office 365 to enable better collaboration with some clients and agencies.

We stay in contact across email, Slack and Whatsapp depending on type of

project, account and other stakeholder involved.

You will provide your own mobile phone, of which 75% of the bill can be expensed

monthly back to Craft.

We are supported by an IT contractor for any issues.

Working hours, flexibility and holiday

Craft works a flexible working policy

We are all in office on Thursdays

Our working hours are 9.00am - 5.30pm

We then expect in a normal week Craft staff come into the office 3+ times or more.

This is not mandated and you can speak to your line manager about what working

style is best for the task you are working on.

We believe in hiring grown-ups and trusting you, but we ask you to think about:

‘What working pattern is best for me?” as well as ‘What working pattern is best for

my team?’

We operate a right to disconnect policy ensuring clarity in the break between work

and personal life is clear and transparent for all staff.

You are entitled to 28 days annual leave a year, 3 of which are taken between

Christmas & New Year.

Work from Anywhere (WFA)

We offer 1 week (5 working days) a year where you can work from anywhere. You need to ensure your hours are shifted or co-ordinated with your team to

ensure all client needs & team needs can be accommodated.

It is your responsibility to ensure WiFi is adequate for work requirements.

Please note that we allow working from a parent or family member’s house and

don’t count this towards your WFA allowance. Working from a parent or family

member’s house should only ever be for one or two days, you should still be in the

office three to five days a week. If you’re travelling to a family home, please do this

in the evening after work and not during the working day. This need not count as

WFA.

If your parents live abroad, your working time should align to the standard GMT

working hours.

Diversity

We actively encourage applications from those with diverse backgrounds.