France Media Lead

France is one of Affinity's most important growth markets. We are not looking for someone to run media plans in it. We are looking for the person who will grow our brands in it.

This role owns the full communication engine for France: how much we invest, where we invest it, what we say, how the work gets made, and what it returns. Paid, owned and earned. Brand and performance. Grocery and Specialized. From the first impression to the basket, and from the basket to a lasting bond between a French household and our brands.

You will be empowered accordingly. Global brand teams set the growth frame and the brand truth; you decide how France wins inside it. You build the budget, you set the strategy, you direct the partners, and you own the result. That is the deal: real ownership, real room to act, real accountability.

01  Media Investment Strategy

• Own the French media investment end to end: how much is sufficient, against which brands and audiences, in which quarters, and what it has to return. Build and defend the sufficiency case with evidence rather than convention: competitive share of voice, category dynamics, minimum reach and frequency thresholds per platform, and the cost of being invisible.
• Recommend the allocation logic across our portfolio and channels, where we deliberately over-invest to win, and where we stop spending.
• Use marketing mix modelling, incrementality testing and causal measurement to move money towards what demonstrably works, and to prove it in the language the business speaks.
• Bring a clear, quantified investment recommendation into the annual strategy cycle and into in-year re-forecasting, and stand behind it.

02  Full Funnel Strategy

• Design the integrated paid architecture across brands & channels, translating the global brand frame into a French strategy that reflects how this market actually shops, chooses and buys.
• Make retail media a genuine growth driver, connecting Grocery and Specialized (pet shops and veterinary clinics) into one continuous consumer journey.
• Unleash the power of data enrichment and AI-mediated optimisation with partners and platforms.
• Own audience strategy end to end: first-party data, segmentation, overlap control, personalisation, and rigorous, compliant data practice in the French and European context.
• Set and enforce the platform golden rules, mobile-first native formats, attention and viewability standards, brand safety, creative specification per placement.
• Lead negotiation and commercial terms in the French market with real command of the players.

03  Organic, Social & Community

• Own our organic presence in France as a growth channel with targets: social platforms, communities, reviews and ratings, etc.
• Build and direct the creator and influencer ecosystem: selection, briefing, rights, disclosure, measurement, held to the same standard of rigour as paid.
• Run a day-to-day social governance rhythm covering sentiment, trending topics, response and escalation.
• Develop social commerce as a real revenue path, with a clear view of what fails, what scales and what deserves investment next.

04  Creative & Content Excellence

• Creatives are half of the game to be won: Set the creative effectiveness bar for France and defend it: distinctive, unmistakably branded, emotionally true to the bond between people and their pets, and built for the platform it runs on.
• Direct the content supply chain with our creative and content partners, ensuring local relevance, speed, volume and cost per asset, using AI where it makes the work better or faster.
• Bridge brand communication and media so that idea and distribution are designed together rather than sequentially.
• Build a French content and learning library so that every campaign starts from what we already know.

05  Partner Leadership

• Lead the full agency ecosystem in France: media, digital, eCommerce, content, creator, as one operating model.
• Build routines & follow-ups, and set briefing standards: give partners clarity, context and room to think, then hold them to outcomes.
• Set the quality bar, the service standards and the review rhythm; escalate and correct decisively, and without drama, when performance slips.
• Unlock joint business plans with the global platforms: commercial value, early access to new capability and betas, and structured test-and-learn commitments.

06  Leadership & Influence

• Act as the country champion for France in the global company: an equal partner in dialogue with Global Brand Directors and global partners.
• Bring the French commercial, category, shopper and eCommerce teams with you, so that communication investment and commercial reality reinforce each other.
• Grow capability around you in your team, in your partners, and in the wider French organisation, and always make others better.

The person who succeeds here will most likely bring:

Proven ownership of a market

• Around 8 years or more in media, communication and content, including senior client-side responsibility. You have owned a budget and been accountable for a business outcome caused by an activation plan.
• Experience leading brand growth in a competitive, fast-moving consumer market, ideally food/ petfood or broader fast-movers.

Genuine command of France

• Deep working knowledge of the French media landscape: the players, the negotiation dynamics, the retail and retail media environment, and how French consumers actually behave.
• Fluent French and confident professional English; comfortable operating in an international matrix without losing the local argument.

Brand and performance in one head

• Demonstrated ability to build brands and deliver commercial performance at the same time, across the full funnel.
• Real fluency in organic and creator-led growth alongside paid, and in how creative quality drives media efficiency.

Evidence-led by instinct

• Comfortable with marketing mix modelling, incrementality and experiment design; able to interrogate a model rather than accept its output as given.
• Practical experience applying AI across targeting/planning, buying, creative production and measurement, with a clear sense of where it adds value and where it does not.