MEC is a media-buying agency owned by GroupM, who are in-turn owned by Wire & Plastic Products (WPP,) the largest advertising, marketing and PR group in the world. We're prominent across the UK and Europe, having recently won new business interests from both the RAF and Comparethemarket.com, totalling over £100M worth of budgets. The Manchester office sits over the canal that runs through Deansgate, a snaking white bridge running over the waters next to the office area providing a calm and remote feel to the place, while the nearby luxury restaurant and bar provide a country aesthetic in the midst of concrete, where employees often go to enjoy beer or two in the sunshine that seldom glows over Manchester.
MEC: One of the world's most prominent media agencies
I'm working in analytics again, the A&I dept as it's called (Analytics & Insight,) where the trading desks are split in a way slightly different to Carat, though I haven't actually seen any of it in action yet. Interestingly though, the A&I team consists of both comms planners from a previous team and data managers from the original core, due to the new team being formed rather recently in order to capitalise on the growth of data and data trends/current market prominence. In all honesty I'm actually very excited that I was picked to tread this particular route at Carat (one of the reasons as to why I was hired, though my line manager comes from a logistics background, so it's still very diverse) because in recent years, the growth of data in marketing has seen increasing demand for 'data scientists' and people dedicated to managing and interpreting data, so I guess the future looks bright for full-time employment if the trend continues.
There's a very good reason why MEC has been voted into the Times Top 100 Companies to Work For too. Not only does it have high rankings for employee wellbeing, leadership and just under half the staff on £35000+ a year, but it's also got a host of other benefits in exchange for hard work. We get pushed into developing ourselves through an Inspiration Fund, small cash amounts to put towards a goal that would develop us as people and better employees. For example, current employees have claimed the cash incentive to contribute to foreign language lessons, skydiving and musical pursuits, and not only that, but at the bottom of email signatures there will be a statement along the lines of "X makes Y thrive," so everyone will know what your project is, encouraging each other like a family to succeed. We also get early finishes on Fridays and even earlier finishes (2 hours early instead of 1) on summer Fridays i.e. July and August, because -as I'm sure you can imagine- it gets quite unbearable in offices from time to time, certainly true if Carat was anything to go by. But aside from the extra cash, early finishes etc. there's also a vocational piece of work. Everyone gets to choose a project, a piece of individual research to be carried out over 90 days alongside regular workloads, designed to stretch our skills and bring in fresh ideas outside of what we normally do, or for markets that we don't currently work within. A brilliant way of gaining new business I think, the projects better preparing us for when we have to pitch ourselves to a prospective client and show our knowledge and skill.
Thank you for reading this piece and hopefully I will keep you posted as time goes on, but I doubt I'll be able to post a summary of every day I work! I'll see what I can do/post in the future but until then
Take Care!
I love these agency logo lists!
No comments:
Post a Comment