Description :
Job Title: Product Planner - Marketing
Job Category: Marketing
Product: (Not Product Specific)
Date Posted: 07/02/2008
Job Code: 232552
Location: WA - Redmond
Travel Required:
Advertising has become an increasingly important and profitable business opportunity for the Entertainment & Devices (E&D) Division at Microsoft. As advertising revenues grow and new ad-funded businesses continue to be created, we face an array of exciting technical challenges that when addressed, will result in the creation of large amounts of advertising inventory that will be easy to for advertisers to buy, easy for the ad platform to serve. Come be a part of this energetic and agile group pioneering ad-supported experiences across connected entertainment at Microsoft.
Advertising currently is, or will soon be, a significant revenue stream in most E&D user environments, including games, video, mobile and new emerging market opportunities. In each of these scenarios, value exchange that puts the consumer first will be key. For some environments, such as gaming, Advertising is a secondary, or even tertiary, revenue stream. For others, advertising is the primary revenue stream. The E&D Mobile Advertising Product Planner will be responsible for evaluating opportunities, building a case, and executing on delivery of these product offerings in partnership with product groups.
Scope and Deliverables
In order to build a large, high-margin ad business for E&D, the Advertising Business Group, and the Mobile Advertising Planning team, must focus on three core activities:
1. Ad inventory creation.
2. Ad inventory sales.
3. Ad inventory serving.
The Lead Product Planner for E&D Mobile Advertising will be involved in all three aspects of the advertising business, with emphasis on creation and serving. Responsibilities include:
Design of Ad Products and Creation of Inventory. The first and primary responsibility of Mobile Ad Planner will be to ensure that we create large amounts of easy to buy and sell, scalable advertising inventory in partnership with Microsoft Advertising, Services, and Publishing stakeholder teams. This involves working with the business groups to ensure that their product plans anticipate Mobile advertising from the beginning, and that we have a set of guidelines and best practices that provide guidance for all creators of Mobile advertising inventory.
Shared responsibility for experience planning. Advertising is just part of the overall Mobile consumption experience. The Mobile Ad Planner must work closely with the E&D product planning teams, Microsoft Advertising, and Windows Mobile teams, and the APS Mobile Platform team, to enable a "whole experience" of Mobile consumption.
Serving of ad inventory. In the end, we make money when we serve the right ad to the right person at the right time. This can't happen without the appropriate ad serving technology. The Mobile Ad Planner will work closely with the Ad Platform teams and Operations to nurture this work to completion.
Sales Support. The Mobile Ad Planner will be twice removed from the selling process, but still plays an important "upstream" role. Once we have a significant amount of easy to buy, sell and serve ad inventory, we must train the sales force to sell it. The Mobile Ad Planner must work with the trade marketing and selling organization to ensure that the key selling points of our offering are clearly understood.
Competitive analysis and partner strategy. The Mobile Ad Planner must also stay abreast of competitive technologies and offerings, and develop a partnership strategy which clarifies the difference between a potential partner and a potential competitor.
Influence and track industry working groups. The Mobile Ad Planner must work closely with the IAB and other standards/working groups to ensure that we have the appropriate voice in the standards discussions that continue to occur.
Qualifications
A qualified candidate will have:
A college degree (BS or BA), MBA is a nice plus
Five+ years experience in the digital advertising field and/or Mobile industry involving technical aspects of digital media delivery and/or digital advertising.
Communication and collaboration skills. The ability to work collaboratively with other technical leads across the division and the company is a key requirement. Emphasis is placed on quick yet thorough decision making and execution abilities.
Project management skills. The ability to oversee and drive large, complex projects with many stakeholders.
A passion for mobile media and new models of media consumption that puts the user experience first.
This role is based in Redmond, WA (Microsoft HQ) area. Limited business travel required (less than 3 weeks/year).
