Associate Director - Platform Marketing, Digital

Associate Director – Digital Ads (Internal) Strategy & Operations

About the Role

JioHotstar is looking for an Associate Director to lead the strategy, planning, execution, and optimization of our internal house ads and promo ecosystem across Sports, Entertainment, Live Events, Subscription, and Strategic Business Initiatives.

We are seeking a high-caliber professional with an exceptional pedigree to spearhead this critical internal growth engine.

This role will serve as the central owner for all on-platform promotional real estate, approaching house ads from a product, growth, and marketing perspective. Because these are internal promos, the primary objective is to maximize user engagement, content discovery, subscriber retention, and overall marketing objectives within the JioHotstar ecosystem. You will achieve this through the effective utilization of our internal ad inventory, audience intelligence, systems thinking, and AI-based tools.

The role requires a strong blend of strategic thinking, analytical rigor, operational excellence, stakeholder management, and people leadership, working closely at the intersection of Product, AdTech, Analytics, Content Marketing, and Programming teams.

Key Responsibilities

• House Ads Strategy & Ecosystem Ownership
• Own the end-to-end house ads and internal promo charter across the JioHotstar platform for Sports, Entertainment, Subscription, and business-wide priorities.
• Act as the primary owner for how on-platform ad real estate (e.g., mastheads, pre-rolls, mid-rolls, banners) is utilized to drive user engagement, content viewership, and subscriber retention.
• Define and evolve the house ads roadmap, leveraging systems thinking and AI-based tools to identify new opportunities to improve promo effectiveness, targeting, and platform impact.
• Go-To-Market Strategy & Promo Inventory Planning
• Lead the on-platform GTM strategy and promo planning for marquee content launches, sports tournaments, live events, and strategic initiatives.
• Own internal inventory planning and allocation across all JioHotstar ad placements, ensuring effective prioritization based on platform objectives, audience relevance, and expected engagement.
• Develop visibility frameworks and planning models to maximize reach and engagement for priority content while balancing competing internal marketing demands.
• Growth Experimentation, Personalization & Optimization
• Lead the growth experimentation charter for house ads, driving rigorous A/B testing on promo creatives, placements, formats, messaging, targeting, and frequency capping to improve overall platform engagement.
• Partner with Product, Analytics, and AdTech teams to deploy AI-based tools and enhance personalization capabilities, ensuring users receive highly relevant content recommendations and promo experiences.
• Build a culture of test-and-learn by establishing growth experimentation frameworks, success metrics, and scalable learning repositories for on-platform marketing.
• Analytics, Measurement & Decision Science
• Own performance measurement frameworks across house ads initiatives, establishing clear KPIs (e.g., CTR, content sampling rates, watch time lift, churn reduction).
• Drive deep-dive analyses to uncover growth opportunities, improve conversion efficiency for subscription promos, and influence platform decisions through data-backed insights.
• Build scalable tracking, reporting, and governance frameworks to improve visibility, transparency, and decision-making across internal stakeholders.
• Cross-Functional Leadership
• Lead collaboration across Product, Analytics, AdTech, Content Marketing, Programming, Creative, Customer Experience, and Business teams.
• Influence product and ad-tech roadmap discussions to unlock new internal promo capabilities, improve targeting algorithms, and drive better user experiences.
• Serve as the strategic bridge between platform marketing objectives and technical execution, ensuring alignment across multiple internal groups.
• Operational Excellence & Process Transformation
• Drive automation, AI integration, process improvements, governance frameworks, and operational efficiencies across promo ad workflows.
• Establish scalable systems and best practices to support high-volume, dynamic promo execution while maintaining quality and platform reliability.
• Continuously identify opportunities to improve speed, targeting accuracy, and execution effectiveness for house ads.
• Team Leadership
• Lead, mentor, and develop a high-performing team focused on on-platform growth and promo strategy.
• Define team priorities, execution standards, operating processes, and capability-building initiatives.
• Foster a culture of ownership, innovation, collaboration, and analytical problem-solving.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience: 7–10 years of experience managing digital ads, growth strategies, or product management from a Growth or Merchandising standpoint.
• Domain Expertise: Understanding of digital ad ecosystems, content discovery mechanics, audience behavior, and digital growth levers.
• Experimentation: Demonstrated experience driving large-scale growth experiments, personalized promo initiatives, and cross-functional product-marketing projects.
• Leadership: Demonstrated people leadership experience with the ability to build and scale high-performing teams.
• Analytics: Strong analytical mindset with experience leveraging data to influence on-platform strategy and engagement outcomes.

Key Skills

Digital Ads | Growth Strategy | Product Management (Growth/Ads) | On-Platform Merchandising | AdTech & Systems Thinking | AI-Based Promo Tools | Growth Experimentation & A/B Testing | Personalization | Inventory Planning | Product Analytics | Consumer Insights | Engagement & Retention | Stakeholder Management | Program Management | Team Leadership