Digital Lead, MGM Theatrical

About WPP Media

WPP is the creative transformation company. We use the power of creativity to build better futures for our people, planet, clients and communities. For more information, visit wpp.com.

WPP Media is WPP’s global media collective. In a world where media is everywhere and in everything, we bring the best platform, people, and partners together to create limitless opportunities for growth. For more information, visit wppmedia.com

ABOUT WPP & OPENDOOR

At WPP, we’re constantly reinventing the future of creativity on an ever-broader canvas, bringing together unrivalled talent, resources and skills to provide an integrated offer of communications, experience, commerce and technology.

Over the last decade, we have developed a dedicated global client practice with the mission of accelerating WPP’s impact for our largest clients by bringing them the best of WPP. Each team is custom-built around a client’s specific needs and challenges, providing easy access to the right capabilities. And that’s why we’ve built OpenDoor for Amazon.

OpenDoor is a unique integration of the best of WPP and Amazon – building on their respective strengths and visions. Whether at WPP or at Amazon, every project is an OpenDoor on new possibilities. Anything and everything can be an opportunity for our people to drive impact – for them to innovate, learn, thrive, and occasionally fail too.

The unique OpenDoor partnership model is built to deliver next level Productivity, fueled by our industry-leading approach to People, Platforms, and Process. OpenDoor spans across all WPP agencies and disciplines such as media, business consultancy, communications and brand strategy, tech and commerce, public relations, and production.

OpenDoor’s values are built from Amazon’s own 16 Leadership Principles, and WPP’s core values of Open, Optimistic and Extraordinary. Together, when WPP’s Creative Transformation meets Amazon’s next-level customer centricity, our people come together to challenge and impact what’s done today and build a better future.

By joining OpenDoor, not only are you joining a cross-function team partnering with one of WPP’s top five global clients, but you are also taking a step to challenge yourself and the world around you every day, working in the most unusual way on some of Earth’s most ambitious opportunities in marketing, tech, media, business, and creativity.

Role Summary and Impact

The Digital   Lead oversees the digital strategy and implementation engine for MGM International, ensuring accurate, consistent, and high-quality execution across all digital channels through regional activation hubs. This role is the senior digital craft lead within the London hub, responsible for translating global digital frameworks into actionable activation guidance, maintaining platform excellence, and ensuring technical readiness across all digital campaign phases - early awareness, main campaign, opening weekend and chase.

While activation is centrally executed through regional hubs, the Digital AD provides directional and technical leadership across paid social, programmatic, video, display, and emerging digital channels. The role partners closely with activation hubs to ensure proper trafficking, QA, naming conventions, taxonomy alignment, pacing structures, and campaign setups. The Digital AD brings to life global ideation outputs through big ideas, driving innovation in the most critical channel for opening movies successfully today. They are responsible for driving central digital ideation, maintaining senior level vendor relationships and partnering closely with Content on custom executions. The Digital AD maintains the standards and systems that drive consistency, accuracy, and performance across all regions.

The role collaborates with the Planning Director, Operations Director, Creative/Production leads, platform partners, analytics teams, and activation hubs to drive innovation and ensure seamless workflow and digital excellence. Although not responsible for market-by-market execution, the Digital AD advises local markets where unique digital nuances arise — platform availability, partner opportunities, regulatory considerations — ensuring local adaptations remain aligned with global frameworks.

The Digital AD also supports the adoption and optimization of OpenDoor operational programs, WPP Open workflows, platform tooling, and governance practices across digital implementation. This role serves as the authoritative digital voice within the campaign engine, ensuring that global standards are upheld and that digital execution is delivered with precision. This role reports into Open Door Global Activation Lea

RESPONSIBILITIES

Digital Channel Leadership & Expertise

• Serve as the senior digital subject-matter expert across paid social, programmatic, video, display, and emerging channels.
• Translate global strategy into actionable digital frameworks and implementation guidance for activation hubs.
• Maintain fluency in platform capabilities, inventory trends, measurement tools, and best practices.
• Provide platform-level POVs and innovation opportunities to support campaign performance and global consistency.
• Key leader in global brainstorms, bringing to life strategy with actionable digital custom executions.
• Demonstrate deep understanding of theatrical targeting nuances by platform to quickly translate studio audiences into actionable buying segments.
• Negotiate and secure first-to-market, Betas and exclusive studio opportunities on a consistent basis.

Digital Planning & Implementation Oversight

• Ensure that global digital frameworks can be operationalized through activation hubs.
• Review digital activation structures for priority titles to validate alignment, feasibility, and channel accuracy.
• Provide expert digital guidance on channel mix, platform usage, pacing models, KPIs, and technical requirements.
• Ensure trafficking, QA, tagging, and taxonomy requirements are reflected in all activation guidance.
• Guide digital data strategies leveraging 1st party or other data where possible with vendors.
• Partner with Planning Director to lead fast decisioning in tracking drills.
• Demonstrate strong understanding of which partners best convert theatrical audiences and manage the shift between awareness vs ticketing campaign phases

Hub Activation Coordination & Central Deployment

• Serve as the primary digital lead for regional activation hubs executing digital campaigns.
• Coordinate digital deployment across hubs to ensure consistency, accuracy, and adherence to global standards.
• Review hub-level activation approaches for key beats (e.g., trailers, heavy-ups, release) and resolve cross-hub alignment issues.
• Ensure hubs follow established workflows, file naming conventions, tagging standards, QA protocols, and measurement practices.
• Maintain visibility into hub readiness and operational timing across the slate.
• Partner with hubs to troubleshoot digital implementation issues and identify systemic improvements.

Local Digital Nuance & Partner Opportunity Support

• Advise local markets when platform availability, partner opportunities, or executional nuances require contextual adaptation.
• Support markets in understanding how global frameworks should be applied in regions with unique digital conditions.
• Ensure local digital adaptations remain consistent with global strategy and technical requirements.
• Serve as an escalation point for region-specific digital questions without managing market execution directly.
• Collaborate closely with markets to marry pan-regional digital plans with bespoke in-market digital campaigns.
• Ensures markets benefit from global digital deals with access to creative, added value or other benefits they could not secure independently.

Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Collaborate with the Planning Director to embed digital considerations and platform architectures into the planning spine.
• Partner with Operations to ensure workflows, documentation, trafficking deadlines, and QA requirements are clear and centrally managed.
• Work closely with creative/production teams to ensure all digital asset specifications, aspect ratios, tagging, and delivery requirements are met.
• Align with analytics teams to ensure measurement frameworks, tagging structures, and data readiness support campaign objectives.

Tooling, Systems & WPP Open Governance

• Oversee adoption and correct usage of WPP Open workflows, project management tools, and digital documentation systems.
• Maintain and evolve digital implementation templates, platform playbooks, trafficking matrices, and QA guides.
• Lead onboarding and ongoing training for hub and regional teams on digital tools, technical requirements, and best practices.
• Partner with OpenDoor operations leadership to improve digital workflow efficiency and platform/tooling enhancements.
• Ensure operational tools provide clear visibility into digital status, risks, pacing, and readiness across regions.

 Quality Assurance, Technical Governance & Delivery Discipline

• Maintain and enforce digital QA standards across trafficking, targeting, tagging, and brand safety checks.
• Validate that all digital campaigns adhere to global taxonomies, naming conventions, and platform compliance requirements.
• Ensure activation hubs apply structured QA processes before campaign launch and throughout pacing.
• Support readiness checks during key campaign beats and ensure technical requirements are met for every digital touchpoint.

Leadership & Team Development

• Provide coaching and guidance to junior planners, coordinators, and hub activation partners on digital craft and execution.
• Reinforce high standards of accuracy, operational discipline, and technical implementation within the digital function.
• Support ongoing skill development across digital disciplines to strengthen overall hub capability

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.

• Experience working on theatrical, entertainment, or release-driven marketing cycles.
• Significant experience in digital media planning or activation, ideally within multi-market or global account environments.
• Deep expertise across paid social, programmatic, video, display, and platform-specific ecosystems.
• Strong understanding of digital trafficking, QA processes, tagging, measurement requirements, and platform setup standards.
• Experience coordinating activation through centralized hubs or large regional deployment teams.
• Ability to simplify complex digital requirements and communicate them clearly to diverse teams.
• Highly detail-oriented with strong operational rigor in deadline-driven environments

BONUS POINTS

• Experience working on theatrical, entertainment, or release-driven marketing cycles.
• Familiarity with Amazon Ads, AVOD ecosystems, or studio-aligned digital activation models.
• Experience with WPP Open or similar global operating systems.
• Exposure to platform partnerships, beta testing, or innovation pipelines.

Life at WPP Media & Benefits

Our passion for shaping the next era of media includes investing in our employees to help them do their best work, and we’re just as committed to employee growth as we are to responsible media investment. WPP Media employees can tap into the global WPP Media & WPP networks to pursue their passions, grow their networks, and learn at the cutting edge of marketing and advertising. We have a variety of employee resource groups and host frequent in-office events showcasing team wins, sharing thought leadership, and celebrating holidays and milestone events. Our benefits include competitive medical, group retirement plans, vision, and dental insurance, significant paid time off, preferential partner discounts, and employee mental health awareness days.  

WPP Media 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.
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.

Please note this is a UK based role and requires individuals to have the right to work in this location

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