Director, Social Intelligence & Cultural Relevance

Confirmed live in the last 24 hours

VML (Wunderman Thompson)

Compensation

$75,000 - $180,000/year

Kansas City, Missouri, United States

Hybrid

Posted April 17, 2026

Job Description

Who We Are

VML, part of WPP, is a leading creative company that combines brand experience, customer experience, and commerce, creating connected brands to drive growth. VML is celebrated for its innovative and human first, award-winning work for blue chip client partners including AstraZeneca, Colgate-Palmolive, Dell, Ford, Microsoft, Nestlé, The Coca-Cola Company, and Wendy's. The agency is recognized by the Forrester Wave™ Reports, as a Leader among Marketing Creative and Content Service Providers, Commerce Services, Global Digital Experience Services, Global Marketing Services and, most recently, Marketing Measurement & Optimization. In addition, VML’s specialist health network, VML Health, is one of the world’s largest and most awarded health agencies. VML’s global network is powered by 26,000 talented people across 55+ markets, with principal offices in Kansas City, New York, Detroit, London, São Paulo, Shanghai, Singapore, and Sydney.

About WPP

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. For more information, visit WPP.com.

Location: Kansas City

Hybrid: Onsite 4 days, Remote 1 day

Who we are looking for:

VML is seeking a Director, Social Intelligence & Cultural Relevance with a focus on strategic insights and intelligence to serve as a critical partner to a QSR brand, translating data, research, and cultural intelligence into actionable insights that fuel brand relevance, consumer connection, and business growth. This role sits at the intersection of analytics, culture, and strategy and is responsible for uncovering human truths, identifying emerging consumer behaviors, and translating signals from data into clear opportunities for the brand to lead in culture.

This leader will work in close partnership with strategy, creative, and channel teams to ensure insights directly inform brand positioning, campaign development, content strategy, and channel execution. By embedding insight into the creative and strategic process, the Director will help shape ideas from inception through activation, ensuring work is culturally resonant, consumer-led, and grounded in data.

The Director will synthesize insights from a wide range of sources, including social listening, audience intelligence, brand tracking, culture trends, and internal business data, to develop a holistic understanding of what matters to consumers, how culture is shifting, and where the brand can authentically and strategically engage. They will also be responsible for overseeing reporting and insight development across campaigns and organic social, ensuring performance data is translated into clear learnings, optimization opportunities, and forward-looking recommendations.

A successful candidate brings deep fluency across social platforms and digital ecosystems, a strong point of view on cultural dynamics, and the ability to connect quantitative and qualitative data to real human motivations. This role requires both analytical rigor and creative thinking, with the ability to clearly articulate insights and implications to senior leadership and cross-functional teams.

What You’ll Do:

Analyze and synthesize data from social listening platforms, audience insight tools, brand trackers, cultural research, and internal business data to uncover consumer insights and human truths
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