STARCOM USA

 

I'd be lying if I told you I passed Lisa Dobias's Introduction to Media Planning class with flying colors. No, I scathed by with a B- in what was definitively my most difficult course in pursuit of my Bachelor of Science in Advertising. Consequently, it came as a great surprise to me when I received a call from Starcom USA in mid-May of 2017 to inform me I had received one of just 9 internship positions for a Media Planning Internship in their New York City office. 

Hell yeah, I was going to be in NYC for my final summer of college. 

Have you ever heard of programmatic advertising? It's okay if you haven't; I hadn't either on my first day when I was told I would be placed on both the Programmatic and Digital Direct teams on Starcom NYC's biggest account -- Samsung. Here I was, interning at one of the largest and most prestigious media agencies in the country with what I believed to be a mediocre at best understanding of media, managing a type of media I had never even heard of. Suffice to say, I felt destined for failure.

For my first two weeks, I never brought a lunch – vendors vying for Samsung’s business supplied gourmet meal after gourmet meal for my teams’ enjoyment. As funny as it sounds, these lunch-and-learns with vendors really saved me. While the rest of my team enjoyed their meals, I scarfed mine down and immediately opened my notebook and started writing down everything as fast as I could. I’d go back to my desk and review the similarities and differences between vendors. This approach taught me the basics of both programmatic and digital media buying.

Eventually, I grew comfortable enough with the concept of programmatic buys that I began analyzing reports for my team in an effort to help optimize our spending. It was the first time I realized I actually loved utilizing data to tell a story. Who would've thought new fathers who enjoy yard work were much more likely to engage with a Samsung Galaxy Note 8 advertisement than their spouses?!

Now I need to digress here for a moment. As I mentioned earlier, I was a part of two teams -- the programmatic team and the digital direct team. These teams both had unique challenges presented to them after the rather significant safety issues of the previous model of the Galaxy Note. When selecting partners for the upcoming Samsung Galaxy Note 8 launch, Starcom had to be extremely attentive to brand safety. Because of that, I had the unique experience of taking a deep dive into evaluating proposals from vendors. During a 4 week period, I participated in meetings with Barstool Sports, Spotify, Billboard, Tech Crunch, Gizmodo, Mashable, ESPN, and numerous other companies vying for a Samsung sponsorship. As the digital direct intern, I stood as the front line for evaluating these proposals from a creative, cost, and brand safety standpoint.

In an effort to stay somewhat concise, I'll leave you with my main takeaways and lessons learned from my time at Starcom:

  1. I learned far more about media planning in a 2 month internship than I did in a classroom for an entire semester.

  2. Programmatic (or data-driven) buying is the future of advertising.

  3. I have experience making optimizations and buys in demand side platforms.

  4. I know how to granularly evaluate potential partners for large brands.

  5. I understand the importance of maintaining strong relationships with potential vendors/partners.

  6. Dress for the job you want, not the one you have (full-time employees may dress a certain way, that doesn't mean it's okay for you to dress that way as an intern).

  7. Never underestimate how many Starbucks are in New York City.

Clients: Samsung, MARS