On Thursday 19th March, Go Think Big gave me the opportunity to work shadow one of MediaCom's key employees.
The person I chose to work shadow was a woman called Sue Unerman. Sue is a Chief Strategy Officer with MediaCom and the reason I picked Sue was because her job appealed to me over the others and it is a job I can see myself enjoying to take up one day.
At the start of the morning I was presented formally to Sue and straight away we were out of the building heading over to the heart of Soho to this event called 'Tvolution: what does the future hold', hosted by ThinkBox. We were going to this event because Sue Unerman was chairing a panel of experts on 'the future of brands'.
During our time getting there, we were starting to get to know each other. She mentioned how blogging is a great tool to express myself on certain matters and for me to stand out in getting a job.
The speaker I was interested in the event was a man called Paul Lee (Head of TMT Research at Deloitte). He was presenting his comments on the future of TV technology and I believe he came across such a complicated topic in the media and he explained the issue very well. This is because the media and advertising agencies need to embrace technology more as they might lose out of touch with their audience.
All the speakers felt very optimistic about the future by stating "we can get better about it" and how there is no wastage in advertising. But I like how Sue Unerman phrased it and to me it summed up the event. She stated it by brands need to look at 'Tvolution' in three steps. Invest. Innovate. Attract.
Once that finished, we headed back to MediaCom where I was greeted with the marketing team. A very bubbly group of people with a vibrant atmosphere to work in. They were happy to show me their past and current pieces of work in attracting new businesses. I was curious about new business and manage to ask a lot of questions because I wanted to get the most out of my day and to know more about the role.
Also, I was introduced to a person called Steven Worobec who is the marketing manager of MediaCom. During the course of talking to him, we were discussing his time at MediaCom, how he got the job as marketing manager and his past experiences leading towards his job at MediaCom. He also gave me great advice and support to keep trying, as the job will come eventually which was very lifting to hear.
Over the afternoon I was able to witness Sue in a few meetings. The first meeting was prepared with Sky's Director of Strategy for a pitch on a Sky Ride advert and another was research towards Sue's upcoming panel event called 'The Future of Media: Boom or Bust?'. The panel event was discussing about the millennial generation. During these meetings I like how Sue expresses an open argument to seek out the best outcome from the meeting as they were both challenging each other.
During the meeting about the millennial generation debate, she was intrigued to get my opinion on the matter because I am part of this millennial generation. It was brilliant that I was a part of the conversation as I had so much to say. Especially on the subject about my generation publicly posting everything online seeking out the likes for popularity instead of really considering what their true friends think and not what social media thinks.
Over the course of the day, there was this word that sprang up quite often, that had my attention and that word was content. At the time I was trying to figure what it meant so I went and did research about how important this word is in the media. Content is the message through the medium to give value for the end-user/ the audience. Now understanding the word, it all started to make sense and the word reminded me of understanding marketing communications during my time at university.
Once the day had finished, I gathered my thoughts of what had happened and I am glad to say I thoroughly enjoyed it and would like to thank Sue Unerman for giving me the chance to be under her wing for a day. I learnt so much as to what goes on in the industry, the roles it has to offer and the characters inside the business. This day of work shadow has made me more ambitious to take up a career in marketing and in the media.
