VML & Ogilvy | Connection Planner, Japan

WPP

WPP is the trusted growth partner for the world’s leading brands.  We unite cutting-edge media intelligence and data solutions, world-class creativity, next-generation production, transformative enterprise solutions and expert strategic counsel in a single company – powered by exceptional talent and our agentic marketing platform, WPP Open, to help our clients navigate change, capture opportunity and deliver transformational growth.    We work with the world's most valuable brands and have global reach across 100+ markets, with deep local expertise.   Our people are the key to our success. We're committed to fostering a culture of creativity, belonging and continuous learning, attracting and developing the brightest talent, and providing exciting career opportunities that help our people grow.    For more information, visit WPP.com.   Purpose: The Social Strategy Lead plays a senior leadership role across social strategy and intelligence within WPP Content Studio Japan. This person helps shape how social is understood, planned, measured, and evolved across Content Studio clients, including BAT, Nestle, and future WPP Japan clients. This is not an executional planner role, but a leadership role for someone who can set direction, read culture, interpret platform signals, guide strategy teams, and help clients understand what brands should do on social and why. The role sits at the intersection of social strategy, culture, data, platform behavior, creator ecosystems, AI-enabled workflows, and measurable business impact. The Social Strategy Lead works closely with the Content Studio Lead, who owns business and account leadership. Together, they ensure the studio delivers work that is strategically sharp, creatively strong, operationally realistic, and commercially valuable. What Success Looks Like * WPP Content Studio Japan has a clear, credible, and differentiated social POV. * Every client has a clear social strategy across always-on, campaign, creator, paid, organic, owned, and earned. * Social listening and performance data turn into real creative and business decisions. * Teams stop reacting to trends blindly and start using signals intelligently. * Clients see WPP Content Studio as a senior social strategy partner, not just a content delivery team. * AI and WPP.open become practical tools inside strategy, insight, ideation, reporting, and learning loops. * Social work becomes more platform-native, culturally relevant, measurable, and easier to scale. Key Responsibilities 1. Social Strategy Leadership * Lead social strategy initiatives across key WPP Content Studio Japan clients. * Set clear platform roles across Meta, TikTok, X, LINE, YouTube, emerging channels, and client-specific ecosystems. * Connect organic, paid, owned, earned, creator, and community activity into one clear strategic system. * Translate business goals into social priorities, content principles, channel roles, and measurement frameworks. * Ensure always-on and campaign work ladder up to a clear brand and business objective. * Act as the senior social strategy POV across key client conversations and internal decision-making. 1. Social Intelligence, Culture, and Listening * Lead the studio’s social intelligence and listening capability. * Turn social signals into actionable insight, not trend noise. * Oversee how teams read audience behavior, platform shifts, category conversations, creator movements, and cultural tensions. * Build repeatable intelligence outputs for clients and internal teams. * Use social data to identify opportunity spaces, risk areas, content territories, creator angles, and community behaviors. * Ensure Japan-first cultural nuance is embedded into social strategy, especially for regulated or sensitive categories. 1. Platform and Content Direction * Guide teams on what works natively across different platforms and why. * Define format strategy by platform, audience, behavior, and objective. * Shape recommendations around hooks, storytelling, creator formats, community mechanics, captions, social commerce, search behavior, and shareability. * Partner with creative teams to push ideas beyond generic calendars and campaign cut-downs. * Ensure content is designed for the feed, the algorithm, the audience, and the brand. 1. Creator and Community Strategy * Define the strategic role of creators across client work. * Guide creator archetypes, casting logic, briefing angles, collaboration models, and success metrics. * Partner with casting, PR, media, and account teams to ensure creator work is more than talent selection. * Build community-aware thinking into social plans, including conversation drivers, UGC mechanics, participation loops, and earned potential. * Help clients understand when to use creators, when not to, and how to measure value beyond reach. 1. Measurement, Reporting, and PDCA * Define KPI frameworks across organic, paid, creator, campaign, and always-on content. * Ensure reporting answers what worked, what failed, why, and what to do next. * Partner with analytics and media teams to connect performance data with creative decisions. * Establish learning loops that improve briefs, formats, creative rules, posting rhythm, and content investment. * Push the studio away from passive reporting and toward active optimization. 1. AI and WPP.open Enablement * Use AI and WPP.open to improve strategy quality, speed, and scale. * Help design AI-enabled workflows for insight mining, persona development, content territory building, platform adaptation, reporting, and post-campaign learning. * Partner with the Chief Content Architect to codify useful agentic workflows. * Set clear human review points so AI supports judgment but does not replace it. * Help strategy teams build better prompts, better frameworks, and better decision systems. 1. Client and Stakeholder Leadership * Join senior client conversations as the social strategy lead. * Present social POVs clearly and confidently to clients, regional teams, and internal leadership. * Help clients navigate platform changes without hype or panic. * Translate complex social behavior into simple business-facing recommendations. * Support new business and organic growth by showing how WPP Content Studio can lead modern social thinking. 1. Team Leadership and Standards * The Social Strategy Lead works closely with strategy and planning talent across WPP Content Studio Japan to elevate strategic quality and collaboration. * This includes close collaboration with social strategists, content planners, social analysts, and related strategic roles across client teams. * The role is responsible for setting the standard of strategic thinking across the studio, ensuring that every planner and strategist works from a shared understanding of social behavior, platform roles, audience insight, creator ecosystems, and performance learning. * The Social Strategy Lead is accountable for developing the strategy team’s capability, reviewing strategic outputs, mentoring talent, and ensuring planners and strategists are proactive, culturally sharp, data-aware, and able to guide both clients and creative teams with confidence. * Create clear ways of working between strategy, creative, media, analytics, account, and production teams. * Build a culture of curiosity, speed, accountability, and practical excellence. What This Role Is Not * Not a community manager. * Not a content calendar operator. * Not just a trend hunter. * Not a reporting-only role. * Not responsible for running the business alone. * Not the person who fixes every executional issue. This person sets the social direction and ensures the studio acts intelligently. Skills and Experience Required * +5 tears of strong senior experience in social, digital or content strategy, or platform-led brand strategy. * Proven ability to lead strategy across multiple brands or business units. * Deep understanding of Japan social behavior and major platforms. * Strong knowledge of Instagram, TikTok, X, LINE, YouTube, creator ecosystems, paid/organic dynamics, and emerging formats. * Hands-on experience with social listening, performance reporting, audience insight, and cultural analysis. * Ability to connect data, culture, platform behavior, brand goals, and creative ideas. * Confident client-facing presence with senior stakeholders. * Experience leading or mentoring strategy, planning, intelligence, or content teams. * Comfortable using AI tools, prompt systems, WPP.open, and automation to strengthen strategy work. * Strong deck, storytelling, presentation, and simplification skills. Personal Attributes * Clear, calm, and decisive. * Culturally curious and platform-native. * Strategic but practical. * Strong enough to challenge weak thinking. * Collaborative without being passive. * Comfortable leading through influence. * Able to simplify complexity for clients and teams. * Obsessed with making the work sharper, not just faster. Language Skills * Japanese: Business fluent or native-level preferred. * English: Business fluent. * Must be comfortable presenting and writing across both Japanese and English working environments. We believe the best work happens when we're together, fostering creativity, collaboration, and connection. That's why we’ve adopted a hybrid approach, with teams in the office around four days a week. If you require accommodations or flexibility, please discuss this with the hiring team during the interview process. WPP is an equal opportunity employer and considers applicants for all positions without discrimination or regard to particular characteristics. We are committed to fostering a culture of respect in which everyone feels they belong and has the same opportunities to progress in their careers. PLEASE READ OUR PRIVACY NOTICE (HTTPS://WWW.WPP.COM/EN/CAREERS/WPP-PRIVACY-POLICY-FOR-RECRUITMENT) FOR MORE INFORMATION ON HOW WE PROCESS THE INFORMATION YOU PROVIDE.

WPP

WPP is the trusted growth partner for the world’s leading brands.  We unite cutting-edge media intelligence and data solutions, world-class creativity, next-generation production, transformative enterprise solutions and expert strategic counsel in a single company – powered by exceptional talent and our agentic marketing platform, WPP Open, to help our clients navigate change, capture opportunity and deliver transformational growth.    We work with the world's most valuable brands and have global reach across 100+ markets, with deep local expertise.   Our people are the key to our success. We're committed to fostering a culture of creativity, belonging and continuous learning, attracting and developing the brightest talent, and providing exciting career opportunities that help our people grow.    For more information, visit WPP.com.   About the Role We’re looking for a Strategy Director to lead building brand platform, creative strategy, and integrated communications design for some of the most ambitious brands in the market — primarily across the FMCG category, working with both multinational clients and Japan-headquartered global brands. This role sits at the intersection of business problem-solving, human insight, cultural relevance, and creative excellence. You’ll be expected to turn messy business challenges into sharp strategic opportunities, unlock human truths that inspire standout creative work, and architect brand ecosystems that travel across channels, touchpoints, and markets. You won’t just write decks. You’ll shape brands, influence clients, sharpen the work, raise the bar for the agency, and help build ideas that can genuinely move culture, shift perception, and drive growth.   What You’ll Do Lead Brand Strategy * Develop brand strategies that create meaningful differentiation and unlock growth. * Define or refine brand positioning, value proposition, brand architecture, and narrative territory. * Help clients navigate brand transformation, portfolio shifts, innovation pipelines, and relaunches. * Partner with clients on both long-term brand platform thinking and immediate commercial opportunities. * Translate global strategy into locally resonant brand direction, and vice versa. Drive Creative Strategy * Unearth insights, tensions, and cultural signals that fuel powerful creative platforms. * Write inspiring, brutally clear creative briefs that give teams a springboard, not a straitjacket. * Shape the strategic spine of campaigns, platforms, activations, launches, and content ecosystems. * Collaborate closely with creatives to push ideas from “interesting” to “inevitable.” * Interrogate the work and make it sharper, simpler, more relevant, and more effective.   Design Integrated Communications * Architect holistic communication systems across Paid, Owned, Earned, Shared, Retail, Social, PR, Influencer, CRM, and Commerce. * Build communication strategies grounded in consumer journey thinking and channel role clarity. * Ensure brand building and demand generation work together — not against each other. * Connect upstream strategic thinking to downstream execution across every consumer touchpoint. * Help brands show up consistently, distinctively, and contextually across the full ecosystem.   Bring Human, Cultural, and Commercial Insight * Decode consumer behavior, category dynamics, competitive landscapes, and shifting cultural contexts. * Leverage qualitative and quantitative research, social listening, desk research, trend mapping, and brand data. * Turn data into perspective, perspective into strategy, and strategy into work people actually care about. * Identify whitespace opportunities and growth territories across audiences, occasions, channels, and propositions. * Keep one eye on the market and the other on where culture is heading next. Lead Clients and Influence the Business * Act as a trusted strategic partner to senior client stakeholders, including brand leads, CMOs, and regional/global teams. * Lead strategic conversations with confidence, clarity, and authority. * Frame the problem, shape the opportunity, and sell the thinking. * Play a central role in pitches, new business opportunities, and agency growth. * Drive alignment across local, regional, and global stakeholders — often with competing agendas. Raise the Bar Internally * Lead, mentor, and inspire strategists at different levels. * Champion strategic rigor without killing creative possibility. * Elevate the quality of briefs, presentations, narratives, and thinking across the agency. * Collaborate seamlessly with creative, account, production, media, PR, social, and data teams. * Contribute to the agency’s intellectual capital, point of view, and strategic reputation in the market.   What We’re Looking For Experience * 8–12+ years of experience in strategy / planning / brand consulting / creative agency planning / marketing strategy. * Strong track record in brand strategy, communications strategy, and creative development. * Meaningful experience working on FMCG brands and an understanding of the category’s pace, complexity, and commercial realities. * Experience working with multinational clients and/or Japan-origin global brands. * Comfortable operating across local, regional, and global business contexts. * Proven ability to lead senior client relationships and high-stakes strategic conversations. * Experience leading pitches, major proposals, or transformative strategy projects.   Core Strategic Capabilities * Ability to identify the real problem behind the brief. * Strong brand thinking — positioning, architecture, proposition, portfolio logic. * Sharp creative strategy instincts and the ability to unlock inspiring creative springboards. * Deep understanding of integrated communications and channel orchestration. * Strong grasp of human insight development, audience definition, and behavioral understanding. * Ability to connect business ambition, brand ambition, and communications ambition into one clear strategic story. * Strong analytical skills, but equally strong intuition and judgment.   Creative Agency DNA * You know the difference between a “solid strategy” and a strategy that makes creatives want to make something brilliant. * You can distill complexity into a sharp thought that unlocks the room. * You understand that effectiveness and originality are not opposing forces. * You’re fluent in the realities of making work — not just talking about it. * You know how to push for better work without becoming precious, vague, or academic.   Leadership & Collaboration * Strong team leadership, coaching, and mentoring capability. * Skilled at cross-functional collaboration in fast-moving, high-pressure environments. * Confident presenter and persuasive storyteller. * Able to influence without relying on hierarchy. * Calm under pressure, comfortable with ambiguity, and energized by complexity. Language * Fluent Japanese and business-level English required. * Ability to lead discussions, present strategic recommendations, and write clearly in both languages is highly preferred. We believe the best work happens when we're together, fostering creativity, collaboration, and connection. That's why we’ve adopted a hybrid approach, with teams in the office around four days a week. If you require accommodations or flexibility, please discuss this with the hiring team during the interview process. WPP is an equal opportunity employer and considers applicants for all positions without discrimination or regard to particular characteristics. We are committed to fostering a culture of respect in which everyone feels they belong and has the same opportunities to progress in their careers. PLEASE READ OUR PRIVACY NOTICE (HTTPS://WWW.WPP.COM/EN/CAREERS/WPP-PRIVACY-POLICY-FOR-RECRUITMENT) FOR MORE INFORMATION ON HOW WE PROCESS THE INFORMATION YOU PROVIDE.

WPP

WPP is the trusted growth partner for the world’s leading brands.  We unite cutting-edge media intelligence and data solutions, world-class creativity, next-generation production, transformative enterprise solutions and expert strategic counsel in a single company – powered by exceptional talent and our agentic marketing platform, WPP Open, to help our clients navigate change, capture opportunity and deliver transformational growth.    We work with the world's most valuable brands and have global reach across 100+ markets, with deep local expertise.   Our people are the key to our success. We're committed to fostering a culture of creativity, belonging and continuous learning, attracting and developing the brightest talent, and providing exciting career opportunities that help our people grow.    For more information, visit WPP.com.   WPP CONTENT STUDIO ROLE: SOCIAL CONTENT PLANNER LOCATION: TOKYO, JAPAN ROLE You are the heartbeat of the WPP Content Studio’s daily operation - the vital link between the high-level vision of our Strategists and the visual magic of our Content Creators. While the Strategist defines where we need to play and why, and the Content Creator builds what people see, you determine how we show up in the feed every single day. You take top-line social strategy and translate it into a tangible, exciting go-to-market plan. You are a culture hunter and a social native who understands that a strategy is only as good as its execution. You live in the comments section, you know what’s trending on TikTok before it hits Instagram, and you understand exactly what Japanese audiences are watching, sharing, and saving right now. Your job is to fuel the creative team. You don’t just hand them a deadline; you hand them the spark - the best references, the perfect audio trending sound, the creator inspiration, and the cultural context that allows them to visualize and execute breakthrough ideas. You don’t just plan social content. You design how social connects to the broader consumer journey. You understand that audiences don’t live on one platform. They move between Instagram, TikTok, LINE, YouTube, events, and retail, and your role is to ensure our content works across this ecosystem. You are a social native with an omni-channel mindset. You think in feeds, but also beyond them.   KEY RESPONSIBILITIES STRATEGIC PLANNING & EDITORIAL MANAGEMENT * Translate Strategy to Action: Take the master strategy and social playbooks from the Social Strategist and convert them into actionable, monthly, and weekly editorial calendars. * Go-to-Market Planning: Develop concrete content plans that blend brand storytelling with ‘right now’ cultural relevance. * Platform Specificity: Tailor content plans for specific behaviors across Meta (IG/FB), YouTube (Shorts & Long-form), TikTok, X, and LINE. You know that a video on TikTok requires a different hook than one on Reels. OMNI-CHANNEL & ECOSYSTEM THINKING * Ecosystem Mapping: Understand how audiences move across touchpoints : social, CRM, events, retail, and digital platforms. * Connection Planning: Identify how social content connects to other channels (e.g., LINE, website, influencer, offline experiences). * Journey Thinking: Ensure content drives movement, not just engagement. * Proactive Recommendations: Initiate discussions with teams and clients on how campaigns should extend beyond social. CULTURE, TRENDS & INSIGHTS * Trend Spotting: Monitor Japanese culture, trends, and platform behaviors in real time. * Audience Understanding: Know what your audience consumes, follows, and engages with daily. * Creator Integration: Identify and recommend creators and influencers that fit the content narrative. CREATIVE ENABLEMENT (THE BRIDGE) * Inspire Creators: Provide strong references, trends, audio, and cultural context to fuel execution. * Format Optimization: Guide teams on what format works best and why. COLLABORATION & PROACTIVENESS * Independent Thinking: Don’t wait for direction. Bring ideas, improvements, and opportunities. * Internal Collaboration: Work closely with Strategy, Creative, Production, and Accounts. * Client Engagement: Be confident contributing to discussions with clients on content direction and planning. * Challenge Thinking: Question plans when needed to improve output quality and effectiveness. AI & WORKFLOW * AI-Powered Planning: Use AI tools (including WPP Open) to analyze trends, generate rapid content angles, summarize audience sentiments, and streamline the calendaring process. * Performance Feedback: Work with the Data/Strategy team to review content performance and immediately apply those learnings to next week’s content plan. SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE REQUIRED * 4+ years in social content planning or editorial roles * Strong understanding of Japanese social ecosystem (Instagram, TikTok, X, YouTube, LINE, etc.) * Ability to translate strategy into executable content systems * Understanding of omni-channel marketing and how platforms connect * Strong cultural awareness and trend sensitivity * Ability to manage structured plans while adapting quickly * Comfortable using AI tools for planning and research PERSONAL ATTRIBUTES * Pop-Culture Junkie: You are relentlessly curious about people, technology, and what makes the internet laugh, cry, or click. * System Thinker: You can connect across platforms and touchpoints, with core strength on Social * Collaborative Connector: You thrive sitting between teams. You speak Strategy and you speak Creative, and you know how to make them understand each other. * Proactive Self-Starter: You don’t wait for a trend to be assigned to you; you find it and pitch it. * Open-Minded & Transparent: A team player who shares knowledge, shares credit, and is always willing to learn.   LANGUAGE SKILLS * Japanese: Native or Fluent (Essential for understanding local cultural nuance and trends). * English: Conversational (Required for internal/client collaboration).   # LI-DNP We believe the best work happens when we're together, fostering creativity, collaboration, and connection. That's why we’ve adopted a hybrid approach, with teams in the office around four days a week. If you require accommodations or flexibility, please discuss this with the hiring team during the interview process. WPP is an equal opportunity employer and considers applicants for all positions without discrimination or regard to particular characteristics. We are committed to fostering a culture of respect in which everyone feels they belong and has the same opportunities to progress in their careers. PLEASE READ OUR PRIVACY NOTICE (HTTPS://WWW.WPP.COM/EN/CAREERS/WPP-PRIVACY-POLICY-FOR-RECRUITMENT) FOR MORE INFORMATION ON HOW WE PROCESS THE INFORMATION YOU PROVIDE.