top of page
Search
This week, I reached the 2-month mark at my internship which means I am past the half-way point of my media-agency internship journey. I cannot believe how quickly time has flown and it has made me realise that I’m not that far away from the end of the semester…. Kind of. Juggling my studies, attending my internship and working to support myself has been a challenging experience, especially as assessment due dates loom, but ultimately it has helped strengthen my time management and multi-tasking skills. Skills which are essential in any work environment and surprisingly, not only manage to teach you about working to deadlines, but also teach you to work smarter, not harder. This is crucial in any role, whether it be professional setting or in your personal life.
For the total of 17 days, over 8 weeks, I have learnt an exceptional amount. I’m starting to have an overall better understanding of industry concepts, understand the data more and I’m even starting to get what each abbreviation stands for, without having to constantly ask what they mean! Abbreviations are used constantly in the media industry and in addition to that each client team has their own set of abbreviations which are specific to that client. This is an aspect you kind of have to start to nail pretty quickly, or you’ll be left in the dust before they’ve actually started talking about anything important. My advice to anyone seeking a career in the media industry would be to do some preliminary research onto what the standard abbreviations in the industry are- this will be super helpful in making sure not everything is overwhelming! I personally am still learning this. However, I have come a long way since I first stepped foot into the agency. Frequent exposure and attendance at meetings and in discussions is helping enormously, as it puts things into context. But if you can do that extra research, I would definitely recommend it. Also, if you aren’t confident in your Excel skills and have the opportunity to do a short course, do the course. Excel will be your new best friend. I myself have a basic knowledge of Excel and could definitely further my skills in the program, I know enough to get by, but I would definitely feel more confident in what I am doing if I had stronger Excel skills. I know everyone says it a lot, but it’s hard to really understand its importance until you are working with it frequently. I will definitely be looking into doing a short course once the semesters over.
I am fortunate enough to be working alongside some really understanding and patient colleagues who are giving me some amazing learning opportunities, even whilst chatting to them at lunch. Additionally, I am working alongside two different client teams, so I am gaining a broader understanding of the roles, different processes and procedures and I see how crucial each role is in achieving client goals. I’m engaging in as many opportunities as I can, I ask questions when I need further clarification and I’m even suggesting my ideas when it’s appropriate to do so. Attending meetings has also been helpful in reinforcing my understanding of tasks and the industry, so I am grateful that I get to sit in on meetings of two clients. Plus, the best part about working alongside 2 client teams with different expectations and goals, is you discover different ways to do things and different features of programs, which can be super useful. Between the two teams, I have done tasks which used Tableau, AQX/ERAM, Trademark, Radio surveys, BCC/Spectra and Ikonametrics (which is a data analysis tool for each major metro market) and have also worked on things such as competitor break downs, updating out of home scheduling and getting reach curve data for tv channels across different markets and dates.
The experience is full of learning opportunities as there is a whole other world of media buying knowledge that just does not get taught in classes. The media planning subject I completed at QUT is really only the tip of the iceberg and it’s hard to get an understanding of depth and complexity of the industry until you immerse yourself in it. Media life is busy and is constantly changing and adapting as new things come to light. This means I am constantly learning new things and facing new challenges, which is what doing an internship is all about.
The challenges:
Some specific challenges I have faced include remembering the processes of how to do things, particularly because I switch between two client teams, meaning sometimes it can be two or three weeks before I re do that same task. Luckily for me though, everyone I work with is super understanding and I am able to write down important notes into the notebook they gave me when I first started, so it’s easy to refer back to and refresh my memory when needed.
That’s all for now.
Until next time.
Tayen
Internship reflection blog: Feb 11- March 6.
The lead up:
Being in my final year of studies, I wanted to do things which gave me a better understanding of how the advertising and the marketing world worked, outside of just standard assessments. So, I signed up to participate in an innovative marketing case competition for a chance to eventually pitch my ideas at L’Oréal headquarters in Paris. On top of this, I decided now was the best time for me to look at getting some real-world connections and experience in the field, so I opted in to choose the AMB310- Real World Internships and Projects as an elective subject for semester 1, 2019. This would enable me the opportunity to either secure an internship or other project/community service to put the skills I have learnt from my degree into practice.
So, now it was time for me to reach out to potential employers about taking me on board for the semester in a collaborative partnership, that would benefit each of us. Since I was doing a major in advertising, I wanted to first try my luck in trying to secure an internship that had a specific focus on advertising, rather than just a broad marketing role. I had a friend who worked in advertising agencies, who had told me what life in an advertising agency was like and decided that I would like to intern at an ad agency, to not only experience the ad agency culture, but to also see how many of the different roles worked together to create a unified outcome. I also had no idea of the actual career direction I wanted to head in other than the broad ‘I want to work in advertising’, and figured that interning in an agency would help give me a clear direction of which kind of advertising role I wanted to end up in.
Right. So now I had made a decision on the kind of learning experience I wanted. Now it was time to put that expectation into reality. As part of the AMB310 subject, students are required to source and secure their own internship or project placements. I knew that the start of semester could be a bit crazy, plus I also knew that other students would be madly reaching out to employers enquiring about internship opportunities, which would reduce my chances of securing a placement that I really wanted. Therefore, I decided I would start my internship hunt early and updated my cover letter & CV about a month or so before the semester even started and began to send potential advertising agencies my interest in interning for their company for the semester. As a preliminary process, this would have allowed me to send follow up emails to employers, research other companies I might be interested in interning for and if I was still unsuccessful, start applying for internships that had become available on the QUT internship placement system closer to the beginning of the semester. I had found some advertising agencies in Brisbane and all in all sent around 10 applications out to potential employers.
Within the week, I had heard back from 2 employers and was called in for an interview with one and lucky for me, I was able to secure an internship at Ikon Communications-Brisbane. Ikon communications is a well-known ad agency in Brisbane, but also in Australia, so I was excited that I was doing my placement there for the semester. My supervisors and I agreed that it would be best for me to come in for 2 days a week, so that I could maximise my learning potential, without hindering my study or ability to do paid work and support myself through the semester.
From the moment I walked in to the interview, I felt welcomed and like the company had a great work culture. Think- bean bags, pool & ping pong tables, drink fridges, a coffee machine to use at your leisure, cool looking meeting rooms, and everything else that made it seem like a place where you would want to go to work every day.
The experience:
Having never worked in an agency or corporate style workplace, walking into the internship on my first day was an overwhelming and nerve-racking experience. I experienced all the usual kind of self-doubts people get when starting a new job, however, when I was greeted by my supervisor and expressed that I was nervous, I immediately felt at ease when she reassured me that I would be fine and I reminded myself that internships are about the learning experience and not about knowing everything at the get go. I also reminded myself that even managers, who have had years of experience in the industry, don’t know everything when they move into a new role at a new company and that everyone has learning curves as well as strengths and weaknesses.
I also went into starting my internship, believing it was a full-service ad agency that covered all aspects of the ad strategy process- including creative. I found out later that Ikon is more of a Media agency which deals with buying and analysing the media spots for a variety of clients. Although not a full-service ad agency, I was still excited to be doing my internship placement there, as I had really enjoyed doing the media planning subject at QUT. This would also enable me the chance to see if media buying was the direction I wanted my advertising career to head in.
Jumping forward, I have now been at Ikon Communications for just under a month, with a total of 8 days. The experience so far, has been amazing and full of learning experiences and the team have been nothing but friendly, welcoming & patient while they teach me about life & procedures in a media agency. I have done a combination of getting shown how to do something and then being able to go off and work on it myself, to shadowing fellow colleagues while they run through certain elements of media, to attending a lot of meetings (and I mean a lot!). It has been an interesting and fun experience so far and has included a lot of data entry and Excel sheets, which I actually don’t mind. When I first opened up one of their master schedules, I was completely overwhelmed from all the data. But with patience from their end, they were able to run me through what each thing meant and explain the tasks I was required to do. Suddenly the documents became less overwhelming and I started to gain a better understanding of the kind of reporting they have to do on a daily and weekly basis.
Although my time at Ikon so far has been short, I am thoroughly impressed by Ikon’s commitment to continual learning in the workplace and the opportunities to grow and upskill. There have been several occasions where other team members who have worked at the company for a while, have sat beside me in training sessions which were run by different teams in the agency. This meant we were both learning the content for the first time and I was able to hear different questions about how and why things were done. I believe this will help broaden my learning experience, as I’m not just limited to how I engage with and learn new things, but I’m also exposed to other ideas and thoughts, which might help me see things in a different perspective or understand things in a different way. I have started to dabble in radio holdings, trademark entries (which is a specialised way of in putting media schedules and costs that is more specific to Ikon), cross analysis and competitor break downs. All in all, it’s been a thoroughly interesting experience so far and I look forward to seeing what the rest of the semester brings me.
That’s all for now.
Until next time, Tayen
bottom of page