About WPP Media

WPP is the trusted growth partner for the world’s leading brands. With exceptional talent, trusted data and intelligence, and world-class partnerships – all united by our pioneering agentic marketing platform, WPP Open – we help clients navigate change, capture opportunity, and deliver transformational growth.

WPP Media is WPP's AI-driven media operating unit, bringing together media, data, and partnerships to deliver creative personalisation at scale. Connected through WPP Open and powered by Open Intelligence, clients see exactly where, how, and why their media investment is working.

For more information, visit wppmedia.com.

3802 - Director, Insights, UK

Role Summary and Impact

Are you insatiably curious, and always asking why? If the answer’s ‘yes’ then we really want to hear from you as we’re looking for an experienced Director to join our Research & Insights team.

We believe that through media we invite ourselves into people’s lives and homes, and as a result have an obligation to do this considerately - offering messages in the right way, at the right time, in the right place. This only happens when we understand who we are speaking to. Reaching people, not demographics. Exploring the data they scatter, the opinions they express, the actions they take. Making sure that no-one is left out, no-one is forgotten about.

So - at WPP Media we are all about understanding people – and after the last few years we’ve all been through, that’s where Insights has a pivotal role to play in the agency. We use multiple, complimentary approaches – everything from mobile ethnography to quantitative studies to social insights to ongoing cultural trackers - to create unified understanding of audiences and business issues for our clients.

You will have the opportunity to get involved in some fantastic, challenging client projects and extensive thought leadership work. And you’ll be part of a growing team full of super talented and incredibly nice people.

We all have a diverse set of skills and we get to work on a great set of clients too – M&S, KFC, Weetabix, Government … to name a few.

Skills and Experience

At WPP Media, we believe in the power of our culture and our people. It’s what elevates us to deliver exceptional experiences for both our clients and each other. In this role it will be critical to embrace WPP & WPP Media’s shared core values:

Be Extraordinary by Leading Collectively to Inspire transformational Creativity.
Create an Open environment by Balancing People and Client Experiences by Cultivating Trust.
Lead Optimistically by Championing Growth and Development to Mobilize the Enterprise.

A day in the life in the Insights team is ever-changing. You’ll work with data from a wide variety of sources and use multiple research approaches to understand audiences, explore sector dynamics, work out how the role for advertising is changing, and identify key trends in culture.

Typical tasks include:

Designing and writing complex, innovative, multi-methodology research proposals and managing projects on behalf of WPP Media and our clients. Projects of this nature will include segmentation, decision journey analysis, behaviour change etc.
Managing and championing thought leadership studies on subjects as diverse as decision-making approaches, consumer trends, brand priming, media innovation etc. including study design and analysis, report writing, promotion and sharing across the agency and industry.
Managing the research and insight requirements of our clients, supporting on both ad hoc and longer-term projects. Demonstrating:
Relevant sector expertise and knowledge
Understanding cultural dynamics and relevant trends
Wide ranging methodologies and analysis approaches – with quantitative skills a key requirement
Working on new business pitches
Tell compelling, interesting stories through data, visualising insights in an exciting way and delivering a structured, useful narrative for our clients
Support rev gen growth of the team through productization of methodologies and approach, raising the profile of the team internally amongst client teams and stakeholders