Overview:

WPP Media Japan is revolutionizing the advertising industry through the power of data and artificial intelligence. At WPP Media, our vision for the Data Senior Specialist is to become the key data-driven architectural hub that bridges technical precision with media performance.

Purpose of Role

The Data Senior Specialist is a key operational role dedicated to ensuring the seamless flow of information between Strategic Planning and Activation. This role focuses on the practical integration of data across the campaign lifecycle, managing the day-to-day coordination required to turn planning insights into executable media actions. The person is responsible for maintaining high standards of data accuracy through the management of basic dashboarding tasks and reporting, ensuring that both internal teams and clients have a clear view of performance.

Acting as a bilingual Point of Contact (POC), the role facilitates communication between English-speaking stakeholders and Japanese research or survey providers, ensuring requirements are clearly understood and delivered. By combining project management skills with a hands-on approach to data, the role plays a vital part in the agency’s commitment to data integrity and operational efficiency in the Japanese market.

Key Responsibilities

The below are the key responsibilities for this role:

1. Data Management & Project Coordination

• Orchestrate project workflows for data-driven services, including report automation, dashboard development, and advanced modeling projects.
• Bridge the gap between Planning and Activation teams to ensure project alignment with business goals, such as KPI tracking and taxonomy consistency.
• Facilitate internal collaboration by leading project meetings, preparing structured agendas, and ensuring all action points are documented and executed.
• Monitor campaign health by coordinating with stakeholders on pacing and data integrity, ensuring seamless delivery from start to finish.

1. Reporting & Technical Analytics

• Execute data operations including extraction, validation, and interrogation using Excel, Google Sheets, and visualization tools like Looker Studio or PowerBI.
• Deliver actionable insights by analyzing campaign performance data to identify key trends and optimization opportunities for clients.
• Maintain rigorous QA standards by implementing systematic checks to ensure all reporting data is accurate, consistent, and audit-ready.
• Visualize complex datasets into clear, concise, and professional formats that enable stakeholders to make informed, data-backed decisions.

1. Partnership & Vendor Management

• Act as the primary bilingual POC for research and survey providers, managing day-to-day communications in both Japanese and English. 
• Support contract administration by assisting with vendor agreements, reviewing terms and conditions, and tracking renewal timelines.
• Facilitate knowledge sharing by working closely with external partners to coordinate training sessions and stay updated on new data products.
• Streamline vendor delivery by ensuring that external data outputs meet the agency’s technical requirements and timeline expectations.

1. Performance & Growth Driving

• Empower account teams with data-driven recommendations to optimize campaign performance and drive overall media efficiency.
• Develop performance trackers and pacing tools that provide real-time visibility into budget utilization and goal achievement.
• Contribute to agency innovation by identifying new ways to leverage data and insights to solve client business challenges.
• Support survey initiatives from design to data collection, ensuring that bespoke research projects are integrated into the broader data strategy.

Skills and Competencies

• Strong analytical, quantitative, and problem-solving skills
• Excellent verbal, written and interpersonal skills in both English and Japanese
• Competence in excel, google-sheet, Looker Studio, PowerBI, among other analytics tools
• Demonstrated experience in data cleaning
• Understanding of quantitative & qualitative survey methods
• Ability to review questionnaires for logic, flow, and feasibility
• Familiarity with Japanese research agencies (Macromill, Video Research)
• Experience in media and activation a plus
• Experience of utilising APIs a plus
• Good knowledge of both Python and SQL for data manipulation and analysis a plus
• Interest in analytics, technology and AI and its applications in communications.
• Good attention to detail
• Good organisational & communications skills
• Team player but also able to determine workload and be self-motivated

About WPP Media:

At WPP Media, we are Open, Optimistic, and Extraordinary. 

• Open. We cultivate trust by taking ownership and accountability, and we empathetically and intelligently balance people and client experience in everything we do. 
• Optimistic. We mobilize the enterprise, driving our vision forward, and we champion growth and career development so we can all thrive. 
• Extraordinary. We harness our shared capabilities to inspire transformational creativity, and lead collectively to deliver a seamless client and colleague experience.

WPP Media is WPP’s media investment group and the world’s leading media investment company with a mission to shape the next era of media where advertising works better for people. The company is responsible for more than $60 billion in annual media investment, as measured by the independent research bureau COMvergence. Through its global agencies Mindshare, Wavemaker, EssenceMediacom, and mSix&Partners, and cross-channel performance (MMD), data (Choreograph) and investment solutions, WPP Media leverages a unique combination of global scale, expertise, and innovation to generate sustained value for clients wherever they do business.