Media Strategy & Planning Manager

At the NBA, we're passionate about growing and celebrating the game of basketball. Through the intensity of the game and the amazing athletic skill of our players, we deliver excitement to hundreds of millions of fans around the world.

As a global sports and media business, the NBA is so much more. While Basketball Operations runs the league's on-court activities, other departments manage relationships with television and digital media partners, develop marketing partnerships with some of the world's most recognizable companies, oversee the licensing of NBA merchandise, and handle a wide range of responsibilities that drive the NBA's success.

Position Summary: The NBA is looking for a cross-channel media planning expert to take our paid media campaigns to the next level. This candidate will serve as the day-to-day planning lead (from initial briefing to campaign wrap-up) on multiple initiatives spanning the NBA, WNBA, NBA 2K League and G League and will report to the Associate Vice President, Media Strategy and Planning Team Lead. The Media Strategy and Planning team is a sub-group of the Growth team within NBA Marketing. The ideal candidate will possess the versatility/capacity to toggle seamlessly between initiatives with very different business objectives, targets and investment levels at a rapid pace. This candidate must be equally adept at: 1) Navigating the in-the-weeds technical challenges of media planning (i.e. campaign implementation, optimization and measurement) and 2) Synthesizing/simplifying relevant business implications for non-media experts across the organization.

Major Responsibilities:

• Collaborate with various internal counterparts within and external to Marketing to understand business needs/objectives for each initiative
• Align with Media Team Lead on each initiative's media brief and work with agencies/partners to develop effective media strategies that drive business results
• Day-to-day lead on affiliate league media plans
• Drive innovation by leveraging marketplace expertise to recommend new partners, tactics, ideas or processes that will have a positive impact on our business
• Coordinate with institutional media planner to deliver holistic recommendations for each initiative
• Create and manage planning timelines across multiple parties/workstreams/deliverables
• Connect the dots across all aspects of campaign implementation (i.e. coordinating creative delivery, facilitating tracking/pixel set-up, delivering feedback to agency/media partners, etc.)
• Review campaign reporting/analytics, suggest optimizations and provide/present regular performance updates to key internal stakeholders (in close collaboration with Data Intelligence, Data Strategy and Fan Engagement teams)
• Contribute to weekly internal and external status meetings
• Stay ahead of industry developments through close attention to the trades, meeting with current/prospective vendors and attending relevant industry events
• Participate in cross-functional ideation and knowledge sharing sessions
• Provide guidance to internal counterparts on media planning matters

Required Skills/Knowledge:

• 5+ years' experience in a cross-channel media planning/buying role (with a greater emphasis on digital media)
• Experience managing/executing upper and lower funnel media campaigns (from awareness to acquisition)
• Expertise in social media marketing across all major and emerging platforms (FB/IG, TW, Snap, Tik Tok, etc.)
• Experience with creator/influencer marketing platforms and best practices
• Knowledge of digital ad operations process, dynamic ad serving, and integration within marketing technology ecosystem
• Knowledge of media measurement techniques across offline and online channels
• Experience with analytics programs such as Google Analytics, Adobe Analytics and TV attribution vendors is a plus
• Understanding of the sports media business and direct-to-consumer content landscape
• Ambitious self-starter
• Team player and connector
• Strong communicator (written, verbal, visual)
• Creative Problem Solver

Education:

• Bachelor's degree preferred