My first week of interning at Sunny Media was a great start to my career! I began this internship after receiving the Sunny Media bursary through my university – USC.When I received the bursary, Peppi Bueti, QA’s director of Public Relations, suggested I should come and meet the QA team and gain some work experience. I was ecstatic when he mentioned this, because it meant I had a foot in the door at a company with an impressive range of clients. And Peppi was just a really nice guy. I told my family after the awards ceremony, and they were all very proud and happy for me.
As for my first day, I showed up to the office at 8:30am sharp. I was so keen that I managed to be the first one there! Roger Delaney, the Managing Director, soon arrived. He was kind enough to offer me a day of paid work per week, on top of my interning. I was nervous at first, because I knew I didn’t have any experience. University has been almost entirely theory based for me, so I was concerned about my ability and how much I really knew about marketing in the real world. However, I was confident I could learn and jumped at this chance to start my career. I was so excited that I called my Dad first thing at lunch. He was incredibly excited to hear the news. I think he’s always been a little worried about my direction and found this reassuring.
Not long after my chat with Roger, everyone arrived. After office chatter with everyone, who I’d met during my induction, we had the work in progress meeting. At the meeting, everyone reviewed their current workload and potential client opportunities. Roger and I talked separately after the meeting, and he ran me through the company’s history and values. QA was essentially established by a group of friends and colleagues with the goal of creating a full-service agency committed to delivering better outcomes for clients. The company’s values are centred around being accountable, loyal, and respectful to everyone involved. Their values align with mine, and it’s my goal to work for a company that agrees with my morals.
The day saw me working with Michelle Wessel, QA’s Client Services Manager. Through working with Michelle, I learnt some basics in media buying and scheduling, we met with a client (Parklakes 2), about a new project and even met with a radio media contact. During the day I got to learn about creating a media schedule, media costing, servicing fees, and letters of agreement with clients. Most of this was new to me, but I have done a basic schedule for a university assignment before which was helpful, however, Michelle’s schedules were a lot more detailed than I had seen.
Next was the meeting with Parklakes 2 (a property development group). The meeting included experts from design, digital media and the Sunny Media team. It was interesting to see how the group of professionals, many of whom were strangers, bounced off each other to create plans with the client. I’d always assumed client meetings would be more one on one, or a competition to win a brief. They settled on developing a new promotional activity for the builders, which would piggy back off Parklake’s upcoming fun run event. I struggled a bit to keep up with the meeting, so I just tried to take useful notes. I’ll need to improve my listening skills.
Finally, the meeting with the Grant Media representative, Lincoln Dye, involved looking at discussing plans for current clients. I had no idea how much involvement the media has in campaigns, so it was enlightening to see Lincoln work with Michelle. Once again, I had trouble keeping up. However, I’ll just need to practise with more meetings. The media planning, client meeting and meeting with Lincoln all gave me a better picture of what Sunny Media does. Moreover, it helped me see what university has been trying to prepare me for. University has done a great job giving me the basics for the industry: defining objectives, defining target markets, planning relevant media, basing everything on research, etc. However, I’m only now starting to learn the practical skills for the industry.
I have a lot to learn and look forward to more.