Planning Director

Job Description:

Dentsu is an integrated growth and transformation partner to the world’s leading organizations. Founded in 1901 in Tokyo, Japan, and now present in over 145 countries and regions, it has a proven track record of nurturing and developing innovations, combining the talents of its global network of leadership brands to develop impactful and integrated growth solutions for clients. Dentsu delivers end-to-end experience transformation (EX) by integrating its services across Media, CXM and Creative, while its business transformation (BX) mindset pushes the boundaries of transformation and sustainable growth for brands, people and society.

Carat is an important part of our world-class offering - an award-winning media, content and branding agency that uses its peerless understanding of the passions, motivations, and behaviours of real people to bring brands and their customers together. Carat is privileged to work with some of the most eminent companies in the world.

We’re hiring for a Planning Director to work on the VodafoneThree account in London.

Vodafone and Three have recently announced a landmark UK merger, creating a new business designed to accelerate 5G rollout, strengthen network performance, and unlock long term investment in the UK’s digital infrastructure. Carat has been a partner to Vodafone since 2020, and following the merger, has been awarded the additional remit of Three and Smarty marking an exciting moment of scale, ambition, and opportunity in the telecoms category.

Purpose of the Role

As Planning Director you’ll play a pivotal role on the account and client set whilst working closely with the overall planning lead on the account (Planning Partner). You’ll develop and embed a connected planning approach for VodafoneThree that unifies demand generation, and performance planning into a single coherent framework. Championing effectiveness across planning, ensuring all work is grounded in evidence, proven principles, and measurable outcomes.

You’ll build trusted relationships with senior stakeholders across Vodafone, Three, and Smarty, anticipating client needs and proactively steering them toward effective, long-term thinking and best in class planning standards. Through simplifying complex challenges into sharp strategic problems and clear communications solutions you’ll deliver exceptional client service supported by timely, accurate responses and thoughtful guidance.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead the creation of holistic, comms plans across brand, mid funnel and performance activity, bringing specialists upstream ensuring activation, optimisation, and creative partners remain integrated with strategic planning.
• Use Marketing Mix Modelling (MMM), econometrics, attribution insights, brand measurement, and unified measurement frameworks to inform investment decisions, channel roles, and strategic recommendations.

• Partner closely with performance, analytics, econometrics, and inhouse client teams to ensure data driven decision making is embedded throughout.
• Use MMM, test and learn roadmaps, brand lift, and econometric outputs to create feedback loops that improve future planning and investment choices.

• Manage and mentor the performance planning team (AD, Manager and Exec) supporting their craft development, prioritisation, and overall performance.

• Confidently lead client meetings, workshops, and cross agency sessions, presenting complex ideas clearly, persuasively, and with data-led storytelling.

Qualifications + Skills

• Significant experience in comms planning within a media agency environment with a strong understanding of the full media ecosystem: AV, digital, OOH, partnerships and performance channels.
• Craft led communications planner, with proven experience developing and implementing integrated planning strategies and media plans across the full funnel.
• Strong grounding in effectiveness principles, econometrics, MMM, attribution, and media measurement frameworks.
• Excellent stakeholder management and experience navigating complex client organisations, with a clear and compelling communication style and can simplify complexity and guiding clients toward confident, insight driven decisions.
• Experience managing annual budgets with multiple campaigns and bursts preferred.
• Passionate about effectiveness, using data, evidence, and measurement frameworks to guide planning and improve impact, someone who thrives on collaboration working with analytics, performance, creative and client inhouse teams to bring coherence to planning.

What we offer

• This is a permanent role.
• The team is based in our London office but operates under flexible working arrangements. The team are currently in the office every Wednesday and Thursday.
• As well as a competitive salary, you’ll enjoy a benefits package that you can tailor to your needs.

Inclusion and Diversity

At Dentsu, we embrace diversity and inclusion, valuing the unique perspectives and contributions of every individual. We believe that diversity fuels creativity and innovation, benefiting our employees, partners, and communities.

We welcome applications from all individuals, regardless of race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, disability, marital status, or any other protected characteristic. Beyond recruitment, we strive to create an environment where everyone feels respected, supported, and empowered to bring their authentic selves to work.

We recognise the importance of work-life balance and are open to discussing flexible working arrangements for all roles. If you need reasonable adjustments due to a disability or medical condition during our recruitment process, please contact us at [email protected], quoting the reference number of the role that you are applying for. Your needs will be handled with respect and confidentiality to ensure an inclusive and accessible experience.

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