Planning Executive
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.
The Craft Founders
Jen Jones
Jen is the co-founder of Craft. She has over 25 years’ experience in media agencies in London and globally, including Mindshare, PHD, & Maxus
During her career, she has been nominated for and won various Media Week and Campaign awards and has been named one of Campaign’s Top 10 Planners in the UK for the last 7 years. She is a regular speaker at industry events and is never short of a point of view on the world of comms.
She regularly judges at industry events including Cannes Media Lions, Campaign & Media Week awards, D&AD, APG & YouTube Effectiveness.
Sally Weavers
Sally is the co-founder of Craft. She has over 30 years’ experience in the industry and has worked for agencies covering the full range of communication disciplines: creative (JWT/WCRS), brand (Branded) and media (Vizeum, UM, Initiative).
Sally is a member of WACL: a network of the most senior women in the
communications industry, sits on the Facebook Client Council, is a long-term tutor for the Ad Association’s Media Business Course, a Campaign Top 10 planner and a regular judge on industry awards panels.
Her career highlights include launching the new MINI for BMW, rattling the directory enquiries market with 118 118, helping Tesco through some significant challenges and bringing Amazon Alexa to the UK.
Small but mighty
We are small but have already started to make our mark, working with startups like Skin & Me and Huel, through to established brands which needed some strategic love – like Freddie’s Flowers, Beats, The Gym Group & St Johns Ambulance through to the biggest brands on the globe – Apple, Amazon & Brewdog
We never know what the next brief might be….
Planning Executive
We are a comms consultancy which means we help clients understand where to place their effort and investment across all of the potential opportunities: from advertising to search; bold Influencers to press releases; outdoor to product placement.
As a Planning Executive:
This role will require you to be open to new experiences, to be well organised, to manage to-do lists across multiple projects.
This is a role that will teach you the basics of advertising and in particular media.
This is a role that will need you to be a self-starter and spot opportunities for you to learn and help.
The Crafty Planning Team:
At Craft we have the ambition of becoming the best planning team in the UK over the next three years. 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 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 requirements:
You should also be skilled in basic tool requirements such as TGI, Mintel, Slack, Monday & Project Management tools – which should enable you to get a higher-grade entry role in future agencies
There are three core disciplines we use to map out expectations, these are; Team, Clients & Planning.
Team
You should have a high level of enthusiasm; care about the business and want to make a difference for your clients and projects. The Planning Executive should support show good knowledge of media and their specialist subject, including:
Contributing and sharing interesting work and developments with other Crafties.
Clients
Relationships are paramount to this role, and you should find joy in your ability to build and maintain strong client and agency relationships. A Planning Executive should support the Planning Manager on day-to-day client contact including:
Organising status calls
Updating project reports and status sheets
Taking key notes in meetings and sharing follow ups
Monitoring campaign and project timelines
Coordinating in-campaign and post-campaign actions
Planning
You should be comfortable having a point of view on the brief and process. It is the responsibility of the Planning Executive to support the delivery of the best possible Crafty Planning work for our clients by:
Demonstrate good working knowledge of planning tools (e.g. TGI, GWI, AdIntel, social listening tools, Touchpoints, etc.)
Pulling together data for PCAs
Pulling together data for Competitives and Audience work
Coordinating data for Measurement Frameworks
Assisting in crafting commentary and building slides for presentations
Review media plans and work with the Planning Manager to interrogate the details of the plan.
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.
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
Area of special interest
All members of Craft take on an area of special interest with the media landscape.
You should endeavour to build relationships with the key media owners, to be kept abreast of new developments and technology.
You should contact trade bodies and work closely with our media buyers to ensure we fully understand the media planning tools and systems that are used.
We should look for new ways to leverage insights from your specialist area and apply it to our work.
If there are training courses, or conferences you would like to attend you can apply for funding.
You should spread your knowledge around the wider craft team.
You should champion the sharing of knowledge in your area across Slack and also Google Drives.
As a stretch target you are also tasked with identifying a Craft campaign which could be entered into your category sector awards.
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 between £28-30k depending on experience
You would be eligible for the Craft Pension, AXA health cover, life Insurance and the company bonus scheme (new wellness benefits coming in Q1).
Flexibility
We are open to considering this as a flexible role.
We expect this to be a hybrid role between home & our office based on Tottenham Court Road.
Diversity
We actively encourage applications from those with diverse backgrounds.