Manager - Integrated Communications Planning

Manager - Integrated Communications Planning

Location: Swindon or London

Salary: Circa £55,000

If you are passionate about brands, love the craft of marketing and are motivated about a purpose that truly sets us apart in our category – banking that is fairer, more rewarding and good for society – then this is a unique opportunity.

You will play a key role in driving how we deploy our communications - working through how we optimally reach & engage customers to deliver our brand, business and customer outcomes, through robust integrated communications planning. You’ll be part of the team shaping the strongest brand market in our category, and creating robust integrated communications plans and programmes to deliver against customer objectives.

And this is the time to join the team as we unleash the potential of this brand and the unique opportunity our modern mutual model give us to wrap around our members, and not shareholders. We want the very best for our members and to do that we want to have the best team who are inspired and driven to really drive the opportunity.

A special brand needs special people – you’ll have deep communications and planning experience, with strong commercial awareness and are driven by insight. You will have thrived working within matrix teams with proven capabilities to inspire, collaborate and influence across organisations. You bring together the right expertise in both developing the integrated comms plans, and driving commitment and actions against the plans.

At Nationwide we offer hybrid working wherever possible. More rewarding relationships are supported through our hybrid approach, bringing colleagues together across our UK wide estate, whilst also supporting generous access to home working. We value our time in the office to solve problems, to learn, and to feel connected.

For this job you'll spend at least two days per week, or if part time you'll spend 40% of your working time, based at our Swindon or London office. If your application is successful, your hiring manager will provide further details on how this works. You can also find out more about our approach to hybrid working here

If we receive a high volume of relevant applications, we may close the advert earlier than the advertised date, so please apply as soon as you can.

What you’ll be doing

You will be part of the team that plan’s and orchestrates all communications, paid, owned and earned, to achieve maximum brand and commercial effect, to do this you will;

• Help define the comms jobs to be done working closely with our brand strategy lead.
• Create a brand integrated communications plan that encompasses all audiences and channels – paid advertising, consumer and corporate PR, owned channel activity including website and branch; social and CRM activity – setting the plan to optimally align to our agreed priorities and investment.
• Collaborate with all the planning teams to create a single planning community to ensure all comms activity aligns and reinforces outcomes.
• Create the signature integrated communication briefs to inspire our communications execution leads– providing clarity on the target outcome, audience and insight – a platform for our comms teams to do their very best work.
• Drive understanding of the end to end customer journey of the integration communications activity - to ensure no dead ends or poor customer experience as part of our planning process – building relationships with teams across the organisation to aid understanding and influence action.
• Lead on the evaluation, working with marketing effectiveness and insights teams, to understand the overall performance of our integrated comms activity and channel performance - to drive continuous improvement.
• Stay close to market and competitor comms activity/performance- to keep an outside in view of the market we are operating in and considerations for our comms planning.

About you

• Experience of supporting the development of comms strategy and comms planning – including understanding, analysing and interpreting data and insight to inform decision making. Commercially aware
• A confident communicator and storyteller who can influence well with proven stakeholder management skills – confidence to manage up and down an organisation.
• Proactive, collaborative and solution-oriented in approach - with the ability to inspire and engage colleagues. Able to set a path through ambiguity and adapt to change.
• Is passionate about brands and craft of marketing – a self starter not order taker.
• Strong planning & organisational skills and so can manage workloads optimally - in a fast paced environment.
• A high level of attention to detail, accuracy and to be explain in simple, compelling business terms.
• Curious and focused on continuous improvement– both to drive thinking in role and personal and team development.

Our Customer First behaviours are all about putting customers and members at the heart of how we work together. You can strengthen your application by showing the behaviours that resonate with you, and how you might have already demonstrated these.

• Say it straight - This is about being honest and direct with good intent and saying what needs to be said in the room. It’s also about being clear, precise, and using language that we and, importantly, our customers and members can understand.
• Push for better - This is about aiming high and constantly looking for better in how we work together and serve our customers and members.
• Get it done - This is about prioritising what will have the greatest impact, being decisive and taking accountability for delivering on the end-to-end outcome.

We know applying for jobs can sometimes feel like you’re sending an application into a black hole.

We review each application individually. So, it’s a good idea to call out your most relevant experience on your application to give yourself the best chance.

The extras you’ll get

There are all sorts of employee benefits available at Nationwide, including:

• A personal pension – if you put in 7% of your salary, we’ll top up by a further 16%
• Up to 2 days of paid volunteering a year
• Life assurance worth 8x your salary
• A great selection of additional benefits through our salary sacrifice scheme
• Wellhub – Access to a range of free and paid options for health and wellness.
• Access to an annual performance related bonus
• Access to training to help you develop and progress your career
• 25 days holiday, pro rata

What makes us different

Nationwide is the world’s largest building society. With over 15 million customers, we have a relationship with almost a quarter of the UK’s population. We’ve got the scale to compete with the big banks, but we’re not a bank.

As a building society, we’re owned by our members – that’s our customers who have their current account, mortgage or savings with us. It means we can do things differently to deliver our Purpose – Banking – but fairer, more rewarding, and for the good of society.

When you work at Nationwide, you can experience that difference for yourself. You’ll be part of a high-performing, purpose-driven organisation that offers rewarding career experiences and a highly competitive range of benefits to match. You’ll also be joining us at an important time as we seek to reach more and more people in the UK. We want everyone in the UK to know that they don’t have to bank with a bank. They can choose a modern mutual instead.

Please note that should you be successful in securing this role the job title on our internal systems will be Marketing and Corporate Affairs Manager