VML & Ogilvy | Strategy Director / Senior Strategist, Japan

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About the role

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

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