Senior Director, Marketing Media

At GEICO, we offer a rewarding career where your ambitions are met with endless possibilities. 

Every day we honor our iconic brand by offering quality coverage to millions of customers and being there when they need us most. We thrive through relentless innovation to exceed our customers’ expectations while making a real impact for our company through our shared purpose. 

When you join our company, we want you to feel valued, supported and proud to work here. That’s why we offer The GEICO Pledge: Great Company, Great Culture, Great Rewards and Great Careers.

GEICO is seeking an innovative Sr. Director, Media to lead the modernization of our media practice. This individual will oversee GEICO’s omnichannel media strategy, lead end-to-end planning and drive executional excellence across all lines of business. The ideal candidate will have a strong track record in leading high performing teams in a matrixed environment operating at a rapid pace. Previous oversight of significant media budgets and experience stewarding large agency teams are required for this role. A successful candidate will demonstrate mastery of the art and science of Media.

GEICO is one of the largest advertisers and recognized brands in the country. As such - this is a uniquely significant role that influences advertising and culture, while overseeing one of Company’s most critical investments.

Our department’s hybrid model is 3 days per week in office, with flexibility. Marketing offices are in Chevy Chase, MD and Manhattan, NY.

KEY RELATIONSHIPS:

Reports to: VP, Head of Integrated Marketing & Media

Direct Reports: min of 5 FTEs and ~200 agency partners from Omnicom

Critical Cross-Functional Partners: Product Marketing, Marketing Analytics, Marketing Operations, Creative, Performance Marketing and Sports Marketing

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES:

Media Leadership

• Engage with GEICO officers and senior leadership across the enterprise, along with external agency and sales executives

• Represent the company’s interests in key media engagements to ensure program efficacy across all areas of investment

• Build and foster strong partnerships with GEICO agencies and marketplace partners to achieve best-in-class programs, processes and governance

Media Strategy Ownership

• Responsible for intaking business goals and strategies, and translating them into actionable media strategies, including emerging media assessment, creative media solutions and KPI frameworks

• Design annual and half-year media strategies across GEICO’s end-to-end marketing funnel for seven individual product lines, while managing to overall brand initiatives

• Develop comprehensive audience strategies and optimal targeting approaches to engage priority growth audiences, then brief performance marketing team for appropriate addressable builds utilizing a range of 1PD and syndicated data sources

• Deliver hands-on negotiation leadership on high profile investment agreements

Budget Stewardship

• Oversee quarterly delegation of a $1B+ Media budget across offline and digital media partners, across dynamic national and local business priorities

• Lead marketplace engagements and negotiations, including but not limited to video upfronts and platform JBPs

• Develop and implement detailed research and analytics solutions that provide modeling inputs for ROI projections and measurement, inclusive of MMM and other business impact modeling

• Champion marketing governance and steward brand safety in all elements of the media ecosystem

Investment Efficacy & Optimization

• Design modern analytical frameworks to allocate and optimize media investments effectively

• Utilize all available resources and pursue new solutions for assessing and optimizing to increase effectiveness and efficiency of our media investments, driving transparency and accountability

• Demonstrate strong analytical skills with an ability to uncover and interpret insights from performance, identifying the “so what” that will drive actionable recommendations for impact

• Partner with Data Sciences to further the scale of re-marketable consumers across the GEICO ecosystem, while also increasing the depth of understanding of our audiences

Drive Innovation

• Identify and pursue white space opportunity and emerging innovations to give GEICO a competitive edge in winning consumer attention and brand favor

• Champion innovation agenda and AI experimentation to grow consumer impact and efficiently scale capabilities

Team Development

• Build an internal team of high performing media professionals, while managing a large agency partnership

• Foster collaboration across Marketing practices to drive integrated campaign planning and execution

DESIRED OUTCOMES:

• Drive measurable growth in customer acquisition, engagement, and retention

• Operationalize AI to enhance media effectiveness, improve personalization and optimize media and content investments

• Promote a work environment that fosters high performance, innovative creativity, data-informed decision making, rational risk taking and accountability

IDEAL EXPERIENCE:

• 15+ years of experience in media planning, buying, and strategic partnership development – advanced knowledge of both traditional and digital media channels, with the ability to plan at both the local and national levels

• Experience leading high performing teams is a must

• Experience working on portfolio brands is a plus

• Successful track record of providing strategic recommendations and performance analyses to senior leadership

• Well-versed in audience development/activation (1/2/3P data)

• Experience with analytical models such as MMM with a deep understanding of how to leverage such models to forecast spending and attribution

• Previous Upfront planning experience, directing negotiations with suppliers

• Success in navigating ambiguity and fast-paced marketing environments – previous positions in transformational organizations a plus

• Requires travel (20% of time) including occasional weekend travel and off-hour projects

CORE COMPETENCIES:

• Drive Innovative Business Improvements: Develop insights into solutions that result in organizational improvements

• Balance Immediate and Long-Term Priorities: Seek to meet critical objectives while considering the impact of those decisions and activities on the ability to achieve long-term goals

• Deliver Results: Focus on the critical objectives that add the most value and channels own and others' energy to consistently deliver results that meet or exceed expectations

• Import and Export Good Ideas: Relentlessly seek, share, and adopt ideas and best practices in and outside the Company; embrace change introduced by others

• Make the complex simple – through brainstorms, workshop, and educational summits, you empower others to learn and action your lessons

• Outstanding judgement – ability to know when to escalate issues in a timely and appropriate manner; strong desire to creatively problem solve

• Effectively fields immediate questions, while also addressing the bigger picture by connecting and influencing key stakeholders inside and outside of GEICO

#LI-AN1

Annual Salary

The above annual salary range is a general guideline. Multiple factors are taken into consideration to arrive at the final hourly rate/ annual salary to be offered to the selected candidate. Factors include, but are not limited to, the scope and responsibilities of the role, the selected candidate’s work experience, education and training, the work location as well as market and business considerations.

The GEICO Pledge:

Great Company: At GEICO, we help our customers through life’s twists and turns. Our mission is to protect people when they need it most and we’re constantly evolving to stay ahead of their needs.

We’re an iconic brand that thrives on innovation, exceeding our customers’ expectations and enabling our collective success. From day one, you’ll take on exciting challenges that help you grow and collaborate with dynamic teams who want to make a positive impact on people’s lives.

Great Careers: We offer a career where you can learn, grow, and thrive through personalized development programs, created with your career – and your potential – in mind.  You’ll have access to industry leading training, certification assistance, career mentorship and coaching with supportive leaders at all levels.

Great Culture: We foster an inclusive culture of shared success, rooted in integrity, a bias for action and a winning mindset. Grounded by our core values, we have an an established culture of caring, inclusion, and belonging, that values different perspectives. Our teams are led by dynamic, multi-faceted teams led by supportive leaders, driven by performance excellence and unified under a shared purpose.

As part of our culture, we also offer employee engagement and recognition programs that reward the positive impact our work makes on the lives of our customers.

Great Rewards: We offer compensation and benefits built to enhance your physical well-being, mental and emotional health and financial future.

• Comprehensive Total Rewards program that offers personalized coverage tailor-made for you and your family’s overall well-being.
• Financial benefits including market-competitive compensation; a 401K savings plan vested from day one that offers a 6% match; performance and recognition-based incentives; and tuition assistance.
• Access to additional benefits like mental healthcare as well as fertility and adoption assistance.
• Supports flexibility- We provide workplace flexibility as well as our GEICO Flex program, which offers the ability to work from anywhere in the US for up to four weeks per year.

The equal employment opportunity policy of the GEICO Companies provides for a fair and equal employment opportunity for all associates and job applicants regardless of race, color, religious creed, national origin, ancestry, age, gender, pregnancy, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, familial status, disability or genetic information, in compliance with applicable federal, state and local law. GEICO hires and promotes individuals solely on the basis of their qualifications for the job to be filled.

GEICO reasonably accommodates qualified individuals with disabilities to enable them to receive equal employment opportunity and/or perform the essential functions of the job, unless the accommodation would impose an undue hardship to the Company. This applies to all applicants and associates. GEICO also provides a work environment in which each associate is able to be productive and work to the best of their ability. We do not condone or tolerate an atmosphere of intimidation or harassment. We expect and require the cooperation of all associates in maintaining an atmosphere free from discrimination and harassment with mutual respect by and for all associates and applicants.