My final week can be summed up as being almost like any other: I completed more site transparency reports for a couple of clients; I completed a strategic overview for a client examining two campaigns: the URL and media exchange, in addition to their most popular day parts, which proved useful for us, as I managed to discern the optimum time of day for each exchange within specific strategies; this ultimately aided us greatly in ensuring that under-performing exchanges were dropped, which I advised in my supporting commentary. This was all topped off by a presentation showing keyword performance alongside my own recommendations for action, a graph from which can be seen below:
There was however a new task I was previously unaccustomed to, one that was quite simple yet rewarding all the same: A competitor report. This was basically a task of observation, where I would exhaustively examine all the relevant pages within a list of websites on which our client was advertising (for pets in our case) and see who was advertising in our space, provided they were a direct competitor. From here I would simply note the website, the tab in which they appeared and finally the name of the advertiser/advert, with a small note on the proposition. This allows us to not only see exactly who our main competitors are, but also allows us to spot common tactics in copywriting/creative etc. The table is shown below:
I think that that should suffice for the tasks this week. Now I think it's time to move onto a final farewell, at least -I hope- for the time being, as I leave this position to revise for examinations and complete the remainder of my second university year. But before I click the all-terminating "Publish" button, I will look back at the internship and pick my personal, Top 5 Weeks, which I enjoyed the most for potentially any reason. Let's begin!
1) 28/11/2013
Despite the fact that there were only two tasks (one of which being a keyword list,) it was a very enjoyable one that I remember vividly and fondly. By cramped, aching fingers from typing, or by my unwavering gaze as I raced against the clock, the Exchange Removal task was one that -for an odd reason, I think- I enjoyed so much, that I wanted to complete the task before the end of the day without failure and -in the closest nick of time!- I did. It was quite a triumph.
2) 05/12/2013
I chose this week because of two reasons. The first reason is because I completed a full strategic evaluation of two clients consisting of day parts, site transparencies, exchange evaluations, the lot; so -as you'd imagine- there was a great deal to organise and it provided an invaluable lesson on managing spreadsheets for readability that I will never forget. It was pretty much the week where I finally formulated a consistent way of organising my Excel work and since then I have continued to do the same, even outside of Carat! The second reason however is far more social. Since it took so long to download the sheet I talked for a while to the colleague who gave me the task and during this conversation, realised we had a few things in common, (namely an interest in Sci-fi) which lead to him lending me the book Starship Troopers by Robert A. Heinlein, for which I am very grateful (it was one of my favourite books last year!)
3) 13/02/2014
This week was pivotal because I finally overcame my fear and frustration with spendchecks! The infernal bane of accountancy was no match it seems for my patience and the helpful aid of some of my colleagues, in vanquishing this demon of what turned out to be quite a simple task of recording figures.
4) 20/02/2014
Art was never really a strong suit of mine, but that didn't stop me in creating a pretty awesome-looking presentation! I still think my placing images over an iPhone to create a fairly life-like layout of apps, is one of my more genius creations and one which seemed to go quite well at that. Of course it wasn't entirely perfect but nevertheless, it was a job well done!
5) 30/01/2014
This week saw me complete an evaluation of a YouTube campaign for which I had to use a calculator to work out some of the sums and put it all into a presentation. It was a little different than usual, where I used CPV metrics for about the only time in the whole internship duration, which of course made it all a little more varied. A very enjoyable week in all where I got quite a few things completed, if the file for that week's anything to go by.
In my final conclusion I would like to round off this post by extolling the virtues of Carat as a company and of these programs as a whole. The AMNET subsidiary of Carat Media, its parent Aegis and in turn its parent Dentsu, are a vibrant and wholesome organisation. Symbiotic, one could say, with the business world and by extension the rest of society, Carat provides a brilliant glimpse into the marketing world of so many clients, so much so that it bestows awesome knowledge. Yes, one could work in-house for one of our top clients but -and despite the fact I've never worked in one- I would say that it provides a narrower view than does an agency held in such high regard as Carat. This is mainly -I think- due to the scope, the breadth of companies that you work for, which all serve to make the days over-flow with experience, which over time amounts to wisdom in knowing what affects one sector as opposed to another, or what one client demands when compared to another, or finally, when one strategic technique works instead of another, in a given scenario. This would be less common in an in-house environment where work is focused on your product and your service and in the instance that you do look into these things for competitors; it is only in regards to how to compete. In an agency this of course is absent from the equation. You will manage the account of one client and then another, making changes as you go without any competitive regard beyond keeping both of them. This is why I think I will always prefer working in an agency to in-house, (or maybe it's my Tomi Clothing experience talking!) because it is varied and provides a breadth of work, combined with considerable depth for the clients we serve.
More importantly however are the virtues of working on small internships like these because -like networking - it can open doors. Since my time here I have been able to gain interviews with companies that I thought far too out of reach and references that can be relied upon to extoll my own virtues to future employers. Yes, I know there is an ongoing debate regarding the ethics of the internship scheme and there are some dubious ones out there. But in good measure, and as part of a well-thought-out, high-quality course, ones like that at Carat Media can really help the student itching to gain the work experience, often needed to dismantle the Catch-22 of not having work experience.
It has been a fantastic time in all and I'm only sorry to have seen it pass so quickly.
Thanks for reading!
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