The Director of Media is responsible for developing and leading the paid media strategy for all three Orlando Parks (SeaWorld Orlando, Aquatica Orlando, Discovery Cove), driving attendance, revenue, brand awareness, and business growth through a comprehensive, data-driven media approach. This role oversees the planning, execution, optimization, and measurement of all paid media investments across digital and traditional channels in partnership with internal stakeholders and agency partners.

The Director of Media serves as the organization's paid media expert, leading strategic media planning, investment decisions, measurement frameworks, and innovation to maximize business performance. This individual combines deep expertise across the evolving media landscape with strong analytical capabilities, financial acumen, and a passion for consumer insights to continuously improve marketing effectiveness and return on investment.

This position partners closely with Marketing, Finance, Revenue Management, Consumer Insights, Sales, Digital, CRM, and Executive Leadership to ensure media investments align with business priorities, maximize attendance and revenue, and support both short-term performance and long-term brand growth.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities

• Develop and lead each of the three parks6 annual paid media strategy, ensuring alignment with business objectives, attendance goals, revenue targets, and brand priorities.
• Own the annual paid media budget, investment strategy, forecasting, and allocation across all channels to maximize return on investment and business performance.
• Lead integrated media planning and execution across television, radio, out-of-home (OOH), print, direct mail, paid search, display, paid social, online video, connected TV (CTV), streaming/OTT, mobile, digital audio, affiliate, programmatic, and emerging media platforms.
• Establish media investment strategies across the full customer journey, balancing upper-funnel brand awareness with lower-funnel demand generation and conversion.
• Partner with agency teams to develop strategic media plans, negotiate investments, monitor campaign performance, and ensure best-in-class execution and optimization.
• Continuously optimize media investments through audience segmentation, creative testing, bidding strategies, channel mix optimization, and emerging technologies.
• Develop and maintain forecasting models to recommend media investments based on historical performance, seasonality, business objectives, consumer behavior, and market trends.
• Lead marketing measurement initiatives, including attribution, incrementality testing, marketing mix modeling (MMM), lift studies, and media effectiveness analyses to guide investment decisions.
• Champion a test-and-learn culture by developing experimentation roadmaps across audiences, creative, messaging, channels, placements, and measurement methodologies.
• Partner with CRM, Consumer Insights, and Digital teams to leverage first-party data and audience strategies that improve targeting, personalization, and campaign performance while supporting evolving privacy standards.
• Establish performance measurement frameworks and executive dashboards that clearly communicate media effectiveness, business impact, and optimization opportunities.
• Monitor key performance indicators including attendance, admissions revenue, return on ad spend (ROAS), customer acquisition cost (CAC), lifetime value (LTV), conversion rates, and incremental revenue.
• Identify new customer acquisition opportunities through emerging platforms, technologies, partnerships, audience strategies, and media innovations.
• Evaluate new media opportunities and recommend investments based on business potential, consumer behavior, and measurable performance.
• Collaborate with Brand Marketing, Creative Services, Digital Marketing, Revenue Management, Consumer Insights, Finance, Sales, and Executive Leadership to ensure integrated marketing planning and execution.
• Lead annual media planning processes and seasonal campaign planning while ensuring alignment with promotional calendars, park initiatives, and major business priorities.
• Build and maintain strategic relationships with agency partners, publishers, technology vendors, and media partners while holding partners accountable for innovation, performance, and continuous improvement.
• Lead, mentor, and develop the media team by fostering collaboration, accountability, innovation, and professional development.
• Present strategic media recommendations, campaign performance, investment rationale, and business insights to senior leadership and executive stakeholders.
• Stay informed on industry trends, consumer behavior, media innovation, AI-enabled marketing, privacy regulations, and evolving measurement practices to proactively identify opportunities and mitigate risks.
• Perform other duties as assigned.

Qualifications

Education

• Bachelor's degree in Marketing, Advertising, Communications, Business Administration, or a related field.
• MBA or Master's degree preferred.

Experience

• 810+ years of progressive experience leading integrated paid media strategy and performance marketing.
• Minimum of 5 years managing and developing high-performing marketing or media teams.
• Extensive experience across digital and traditional paid media channels.
• Proven success managing multi-million-dollar media budgets and delivering measurable business growth.
• Strong experience managing agency relationships and leading cross-functional marketing initiatives.
• Experience with marketing analytics, attribution, forecasting, experimentation, and media measurement frameworks.
• Experience within theme parks, attractions, hospitality, travel, entertainment, or other consumer-facing industries preferred.

Knowledge, Skills & Abilities

• Deep understanding of today's omnichannel media ecosystem, including search, social, programmatic, display, CTV/OTT, online video, audio, traditional media, and emerging platforms.
• Strong knowledge of audience strategy, first-party data activation, customer acquisition, and media measurement.
• Experience with Marketing Mix Modeling (MMM), incrementality testing, attribution methodologies, and performance analytics.
• Financial acumen with demonstrated experience managing large media budgets, forecasting investments, and optimizing return on investment.
• Strategic thinker who can balance long-term brand building with short-term performance objectives.
• Outstanding analytical, problem-solving, and decision-making skills with the ability to translate complex data into actionable business recommendations.

The perks of the position:

• Paid Time Off
• Complimentary Park Tickets and Passes
• Park Discounts on Food and Merchandise
• Medical, Dental, and Vision Insurance
• 401K Retirement plan
• Voluntary Insurance
• Life Insurance
• Disability Benefits
• Tuition Reimbursement
• Dependent and Health Care Flexible Spending Accounts
• Employee Assistance Program
• Legal Assistance Plan