Group Director, Analytics-First Party Data & Loyalty

Who We Are

VML is a global creative company that combines brand experience, customer experience, and commerce to create connected brands that drive growth. Guided by a Human First philosophy, VML is known for its innovative work for brands and consistently ranks among the world’s leading creative companies, including the WARC Creative 100. VML’s global network spans 55+ markets with principal offices in Buenos Aires, Kansas City, London, New York, São Paulo, Shanghai and Singapore.

VML is part of WPP, the trusted growth partner for the world's leading brands. Powered by exceptional talent and our agentic marketing platform WPP Open, WPP unites cutting-edge media intelligence and data solutions, creativity, production, enterprise solutions and expert strategic counsel.

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ABOUT US

The WPP l Ford Team is an integrated operating network made up of a dynamic multi-agency ecosystem that serves Ford Motor Company and its many diverse units around the world. This operating team provides a breadth of marketing experience for Ford across Communications, Marketing, Brand and Customer Experience, A.I., Creative, Production, Media, Strategy, Analytics, Commerce & Technology and more.

Operated under a central leadership team, it draws best-in-class talent from leading WPP agencies including VML (Brand & Customer Experience), WPP Media (Media), GTB (Precision Retail Marketing), WPP Production (Brand Design & Production), Zubi & UWG (Multicultural), and Burson (Corporate Communications/ Public Relations), among other key WPP specialists. WPP l Ford team members work in a highly integrated environment, with direct exposure across virtually every discipline of modern marketing.

This role is imbedded within VML agency as part of the WPP network. At VML, we are a beacon of innovation and growth in an ever-evolving world. Our heritage is built upon a century of combined expertise, where creativity meets technology, and diverse perspectives ignite inspiration.

About the Role

This role will oversee and advise on Ford's first-party customer data, including ownership history, customer journey behavior, and loyalty program activity across Ford Rewards and Lincoln Access Rewards. This is an increasingly important source of competitive differentiation for Ford — loyalty programs generate rich behavioral signals that can meaningfully improve targeting precision, message sequencing, personalization, and ultimately customer retention and lifetime value.

The Group Director, First-Party Data & Loyalty Analytics will serve as WPP Ford's US subject matter expert for first-party customer data, responsible for building the analytical bridge between Ford's loyalty programs and its owner marketing communications. This is a net-new leadership position, established to create a domestic center of expertise. The role will be part of WPP Ford's Marketing Intelligence team, but partners closely with other global WPP business units.

The emphasis of this role is on insight and business impact rather than reporting volume. Success is measured by the quality of the recommendations produced and their influence on marketing decisions — identifying what matters in the data and translating it into clear, actionable guidance for Ford's marketing leadership.

What You'll Do

Own the first-party data agenda

• Analyze ownership and customer journey data to identify the behavioral patterns that predict loyalty, retention, and customer lifetime value

• Work directly within Ford's first-party data and martech ecosystem — including customer data platforms (e.g., Adobe Real-Time CDP), Salesforce Marketing Cloud, and adjacent identity and audience management tools — to access, structure, and interrogate customer-level data

• Advise on data architecture and readiness for first-party use cases: unified customer profiles, identity resolution, audience schemas, consent and preference signals, and the data quality required to support them

• Build and maintain measurement frameworks for loyalty program performance and its downstream effect on owner marketing outcomes

• Identify opportunities where personalization and targeting performance can be improved through better integration of loyalty and owner marketing data, and quantify the associated business value

Integrate loyalty and owner marketing analytics

• Serve as the analytical link between Ford Rewards, Lincoln Access Rewards, and owner marketing communications

• Develop evidence-based recommendations for targeting, message sequencing, and personalization informed by loyalty behavior signals

• Translate loyalty behavior insights into activation-ready guidance — audience definitions, segmentation logic, suppression rules, and journey triggers — that CRM and platform teams can implement in Salesforce Marketing Cloud and the CDP

• Identify areas of duplication or misalignment between the loyalty and owner marketing workstreams and drive their resolution

Lead client engagement and strategic narrative

• Translate analytical findings into clear, compelling narratives that enable marketing executives to make informed decisions

• Present recommendations directly to Ford marketing stakeholders; this is a client-facing leadership role with regular executive engagement

• Support Enterprise Solutions with first-party data expertise on broader customer experience and personalization initiatives, and build the delivered-work case for expanded CX investment

How You'll Work

You will operate at the intersection of several teams:

• WPP Ford Marketing Intelligence — your home team, reporting to the Global Data & Analytics Officer, with proximity to the broader measurement agenda (unified data modeling, MTA/MROI, geographic analysis)

• Audience Intelligence & Martech — partnering on first-party audience strategy, identity, and activation across the martech stack, including the CDP and marketing automation platforms

• Ford CRM and loyalty program teams — your primary client stakeholders and the owners of the data assets central to this role

• Platform and data engineering teams — collaborating on data pipelines, schemas, and platform configurations (Adobe Real-Time CDP, Salesforce Marketing Cloud, cloud data environments) so that analytical requirements are reflected in how first-party data is captured, unified, and made available

• APAC loyalty analytics team — an established WPP team supporting Ford loyalty in the region; you will serve as their domestic counterpart, sharing methodologies and frameworks across markets

This role serves as the analytical connective tissue across these groups. Success requires hands-on analytical depth, working fluency in the enterprise martech and customer data platforms where first-party data lives, and executive presence — the ability to conduct rigorous analysis directly, and to present the resulting insights and recommendations credibly to senior marketing stakeholders.

What You'll Bring

Required

• 10+ years in marketing analytics, CRM analytics, or customer data strategy, with deep hands-on experience in first-party/owned customer data (not primarily ad platform or media data)

• Specific experience in loyalty, retention, or customer lifecycle analytics — not general-purpose marketing analytics

• Fluency querying, joining, and analyzing data with reproducible code (SQL required; Python or R a plus)

• Hands-on experience with enterprise customer data and marketing platforms — Adobe Experience Platform / Real-Time CDP, Salesforce Marketing Cloud, or comparable CDP and marketing automation tools — including how customer profiles, identity resolution, segmentation, and activation work within them

• Demonstrated experience building measurement frameworks from raw behavioral or transactional data, not just reporting against existing dashboards

• Ability to connect business and marketing context to data strategy — identifying and prioritizing use cases, asking the questions that matter, and translating findings for executives

• Track record of presenting analytical findings directly to marketing executives and having those findings change a decision

• Experience working across and influencing matrixed, cross-functional teams, both internally and with clients

• Proactive ownership: the initiative to work through ambiguity and drive issues to resolution

Preferred

• Automotive or considered-purchase category experience (long consideration cycles, ownership data, dealer/retail hybrid models)

• Direct exposure to loyalty program mechanics — points and rewards structures, tiering, redemption behavior

• Experience within a holding company or agency model, balancing client-facing credibility with internal delivery accountability

What Good Looks Like in 12 Months

• Loyalty program data and owner marketing targeting are demonstrably connected, with at least one measurable change in targeting or sequencing driven by loyalty behavior insight

• Ford stakeholders treat you as the default first call on first-party data questions

• Your recommendations have directly changed a marketing decision, with the outcome tracked

• A working operating rhythm exists with the APAC loyalty analytics team, with shared frameworks in use across markets

The base salary range for this position at the time of this posting is indicated below. Individual compensation varies based on job-related factors, including location, business needs, level of responsibility, experience, and qualifications. We offer a competitive benefits package, click WPP Benefits for more details.

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$100,000 — $230,000 USD

We believe the best work happens when we're together, fostering creativity, collaboration, and connection. That's why we’ve adopted a hybrid approach, with teams in the office an average of four days a week. If you require accommodations or flexibility, please discuss this with the hiring team during the interview process.

WPP (VML) is an equal opportunity employer and considers applicants for all positions without discrimination or regard to characteristics. We are committed to fostering a culture of respect in which everyone feels they belong and has the same opportunities to progress in their careers.

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