About Us
Who we are
We were founded in London in 1990 as a strategy and planning-led agency that `thought before it bought'. Over three decades later, the landscape has vastly changed, but this mindset has remained. It's helped our clients to move further, faster and grow ahead of their competition.
Our dedication to exceptional thinking has not only made our clients successful but has earned us numerous accolades and made PHD one of the most recognised agency networks in the world, with over 6,500 people across 74 countries globally.
Our first Australian office opened in 2009 and we have since grown to become the fourth largest agency in the country, now with over 200 people serving iconic brands from Australia and around the world. We are a certified Great Place to Work and have been recognised as an AFR Most Innovative Company five times.
Our mission
Intelligence. Connected.
We deliver transformative growth by helping our clients outthink, outpace, and outgrow their competition across a next-generation network that brings everything and everyone together.
Intelligence is having a diverse, inclusive culture, with the best training and market-leading thought leadership that grows our people to be the best. It's about adapting our planning and strategic heritage to solve business problems in an increasingly complex world.
Connected is seamlessly tapping into the broader Omnicom network and our industry-leading tools and capabilities. This includes Omni, our campaign orchestration platform, voted best-in-class by Forrester. This is enhanced by a holistic transformation agenda, enabling us to work with clients on key growth drivers across multiple areas-digital, commerce, measurement, analytics, DE&I, sustainability, creative, content, and experience.
In short, we know that to achieve transformative growth, we must cultivate and celebrate intelligence in all its forms, and we're committed to attracting and developing the best minds in the business.
Our values
Our values act as the cornerstone of our behaviours, enriching our experience and our product at PHD.
Our four core values - Curiosity, Courage, Collaboration, and Creativity - guide every aspect of our operations, ensuring we deliver effective solutions with integrity:
- Curiosity - Asking why, going beyond the familiar and seeking inspiration from other worlds
- Courage - Doing what's right, even if it's not always easy. Having a point of view and the courage to speak it
- Collaboration - Connecting across disciplines to be a team that is greater than the sum of our parts
- Creativity - Challenging the status quo and solving problems in imaginative ways
PHD Media, Sydney AU/ Planning Director- Account Management & Planning/ Level 4
About the role
As Planning Director, you are responsible for the leading and planning of client campaigns to deliver the best possible planning product. You will support your Business Director and Group Business Director in leveraging relationships to create and sell insightful media plans. Reporting directly to the Business Director, you will confidently lead your team.
The team
At PHD we're driven by a need to forge new roads for our clients, some of which you've probably heard of. That's why we need people on our team who want to do things that haven't been done before. We are founded on a commitment to support diversity of voices and encourage everyone to share their perspectives and ideas. As part of our team, you will help steer us and our clients towards new levels of growth.
What you'll do:
- Origination of the Communications Plan: The creation of channel plans that build from the core media idea and demonstrate expert planning skills.
- Client relationship management: the principal client contact for the whole planning process.
- Leverage strong relationships & influence clients and media owners at all levels.
- Strategically deliver insightful media strategies for your client, in conjunction with the strategy team when appropriate.
- Identify strategic creative and innovative media initiatives that are born out of the strategic media direction and lead their implementation.
- Working alongside Strategy and Investment teams to ensure best possible product gets to market
- Ensure all media goals and strategies are achievable and executable within budgets using support of the Investment team.
- Own the planning process across all media, including digital. This will include making sure digital adheres to Source principles.
Who you'll be
- You've got a proven ability to lead the development of insights and creative communication solutions.
- You're confident being the principal client contact for the whole planning process.
- You're able to create and own the planning and admin processes.
- You've got the agency's best interest at heart, always looking for opportunities to collaborate and include SBU's as a means of driving additional revenue.
- Ability to clearly brief and articulate client goals to media owners to deliver best in market responses.
- You can hold your own in a conversation and use your social skills to form strong relationships with your team and your clients.
- You can work on your own with minimal supervision.
- You notice the small things. Nothing gets by you.
- You're on time, every time.
- You run towards the fire, always ready with a solution.
- You like your eggs sunny side up and share that mentality with your team.
- You uphold PHD values of Courage, Collaboration and Curiosity with a constructive point of view in all things.
- You won't let any work get by you that isn't of the highest standard.
The Four P's and how we measure success
Each role is grounded upon a framework of four key pillars, which we call The Four P's, to help us divide tasks and measure our success individually and as a team.
1. Performance
At PHD, we want our campaigns to have a lasting impact on the market. For us to assess whether we're on the right track, we need you to:
- Creating clear and coherent plans that bring ideas to life and supports the team.
- Delivering a smooth planning process which delivers the best results.
- Using your working knowledge of relevant tools, reporting systems and templates to your advantage in the process.
- Working closely with the Investment team to ensure they are getting what they need from the Planning Team and `close the loop' on all your campaigns.
- Managing the team to ensure their digital and programmatic planning process is followed correctly, with specific adherence to Source principles.
2. Product
Product is a measure of longevity, emotional impact and disruption of the market. Only by pushing the boundaries of what's possible can we help our clients' business truly fulfill their potential. Some tasks we'll need you to do include:
- Knowing what your clients' competitors are doing and the implications to their business.
- Preparation of competitive intelligence with clients, strategy and investment teams.
- From brief to fully realised channel plan you will work with the Business Director to deliver game changing planning.
- Working alongside your colleagues in Strategy to drive insights, leverage inspirational ideas and be the expert at making ideas come to life.
- Working with the Business Director and Digital specialists to identify how PHD digital products could benefit your clients' business.
- You will back yourself and defend your ideas with courage and conviction when they demonstrate the PHD point of view and benefit your clients.
3. People
As Planning Director, you must possess the ability to lead and influence the actions and opinions of others to achieve superior results. As part of your role, you may be expected to:
- Lead by example as an expert in your field.
- Know when to step back and let your team members take the reins.
- Make it your mission to understand what motivates the individuals.
- Have a keen eye and always one ear open to spot any pressure points within the team.
4. Partnerships
The Planning Director is responsible for building quality working relationships to improve personal and business performance. As part of maintaining successful partnerships, you will be expected to:
- Have an ease with clients and ensure only PHD quality work gets in front of them.
- Ensure only PHD quality work gets in front of your client
- Understand your clients are real people, with challenges that you want to help them meet.
- You will respond and manage client issues, including digital ones (delegate when necessary to digital or business leads)
- You nurture all relationships within your team to understand individual motivations and hear all ideas.- You have a good knowledge of all PHD's (relevant) digital product offerings and the benefits these can add to your client's business. You will not know the ins and outs, but you will be able to discuss the key benefits as well as understand how they are performing for your client.
