Account Director – Food & Beverage

Winner of Philadelphia Business Journal’s Best Places to Work, Think-Traffic has an exciting growth opportunity for a technology savvy Account Director with 5+ years food and beverage, hospitality, and/or franchise marketing experience. Our Account Director must be an enthusiastic self-starter who dots i’s and crosses t’s while being able to think outside the box.

Primary Responsibilities

• Serve as a trusted advisor, alternately driving strategic and tactical thinking for technical, business, and operational initiatives across client organization
• Drive thought leadership within both client organizations and the agency, and present examples of innovation, programs and trends to inspire the internal team and clients
• Responsible for account stability and growth
• Most visible client contact
• Establishes and builds strong personal and working relationships with designated client contacts and makes certain the agency maintains a “web” of contact throughout each organization
• Responsible for ongoing management, service, and profitability for assigned accounts and/or programs
• Most skillfully interacts and manages different personalities and skill sets
• Anticipates potential relationship or expectation issues, and advises the CEO and manager in time for the agency to act proactively
• Demonstrates a clear, comfortable, persuasive presentation style for both formal and informal settings
• Takes ownership of all account duties including but not limited to: status reports, meeting recaps and notes, meeting agendas, presentation and deck building, and billing & reconciliations
• Proactively manages all facets of the business on assigned accounts from budgets, to media plans, to social media and digital initiatives
• Tracks, reports and provides client with ROI on all initiatives managed by the agency so as to strengthen perceived value of agency contributions
• Processes assigned work requests in efficient, timely manner
• Proactively plans/hosts client entertainment and team building events

Client Accountability

• Maintains each client’s respect and confidence as a trusted advisor and confidant offering an eager and open ear, sound judgment, proven business acumen and a range of relevant approaches to various issues and opportunities
• Demonstrates a thorough understanding of the client’s business and industry, becoming the “subject matter expert”, and lead the Account Team(s) in understanding/knowing this information
• Provide strategic planning and direction on assigned account(s), and develop/present appropriate POVs to the client(s) as required to keep agency top-of-mind to client(s)
• Performs a leadership role in preparing and conducting casino competitive reports and client strategic sessions
• Writes effective marketing plans, creative briefs, work orders and reports
• Leads development and oversees implementation of an annual Client development plan
• Coordinates Plans Board meeting, as appropriate

Internal Perspective

• Remains in touch with the agency’s “day-to-day” business on behalf of clients – knowledgeable and conversant in their key issues, competitive situation, industry trends and the projects assigned the agency as well as other communication partners
• Demonstrates a willingness and ability to lead the positive, spirited debate of ideas and points-of-view in order to push “your team” and the agency at large to deliver a continuously improving product, both counsel and creative
• Communicates effectively and proactively with department heads regarding performance issues and opportunities for improvement
• Rigorously edits staff communications and presentation documents so that they are clear, concise and error free

Financial Management

• Proactively initiates discussion, and addresses any anticipated variance from, annual revenue goals
• Establishes annual billing and revenue goals for each client, tracking progress on a quarterly basis
• Identify specific opportunities for growth within existing client organizations
• Develops and employs selling skills to explore these growth opportunities
• Develop, present and negotiate annual agency fees/budgets
• Is a model for stewardship of our clients’ and the agency’s money – avoiding unnecessary expenditures, acting to minimize errors, and negotiating required costs
• Ensure clients’ perception that agency consistently provides value-added services
• Supervise and approve the development and administration of clients’ budgets
• Ensure/review the accurate and timely preparation of production, media, digital, and other budgets/estimates for approval
• Monitor and evaluate all costs from within internal agency teams and outside vendors

Requirements

• 5+ years of agency or allied communications industry experience that provides an understanding of advertising, marketing, media, creative, production, public relations, research, social, digital, agency finance, etc.
• 5+ years experience within the marketing industry, including agency experience in food & beverage, hospitality, and/or franchise marketing a must.
• A conceptual understanding of marketing, branding, strategy and planning are required.
• Bachelor’s Degree
• Self-starter and self-motivated, with the ability to provide solutions without supervision
• Ability to work under pressure, meet deadlines, and handle multiple projects simultaneously
• Enthusiastic with excellent verbal and written communication skills
• Mac literate (Word, Excel, Outlook, Keynote)
• Thrives in a collaborative, fast-paced environment
• Organized, has attention to detail and able to multi-task
• Experience in client facing roles
• Facebook/Instagram/Twitter/TikTok expertise required
• Strong leadership capabilities
• Proven ability to educate, train, and persuade

Send resume and cover letter to [email protected]

Think Traffic