Seventh Week July 18-22

Monday

I began the week working once again on my part of the intern project. To really get the slides pounded out for our presentation, we each had to get hard copies of our part of the media plan done. I spent the morning putting my part into slides which included: objectives, strategies, magazine selection, rationale, advertising schedule, and costs. I was also informed (a little later in the morning) that we needed to scale back our budget because even a large conglomerate such as unilever would not choose to spen 75 million in a year on just one brand. So we scaled the budget back to 20 million and kept the same ratio of spending. Our new budget:

Magazine - $5,000,000
TV - Network - $1,000,000
TV - Cable - $4,000,000
OOH - $5,000,000
Radio - $2,000,000
Internet - $2,000,000
Promotions - $1,000,000

TOTAL = $20,000,000

This basically required me to cut out a lot from my estimates, but it made decisions a lot easier because I could cancel all the magazines that were on the edge (content didn't quite match target, crosstab numbers were low, no opportunity for added value, etc..) and just concentrate on those large name publications that were sure to be seen. It made me wonder if print planners ever pay attention to small name publications (I doesn't seem like my group does!) and how the small name publications get advertising dollars then.

The second part of my day was enveloped by a project that sounds boring, but was actually a lot of fun and taught me about the world of inserts. As we do with everything, there is a file cabinet where all interesting or innovative inserts in magazines are kept so that the print group can pull them at any time and get ideas or call the rep and get estimates. Unfortunately, many of these inserts had not been labeled properly or recorded into their corresponding chart. I had to label these and learn lingo like: pull-out, pop-up, woven centerfold, cardstock, etc...so I could fill out the chart. The inserts were amazing to me and ranged from a fold-out shoe to an underwear model with a changeable underwear wheel. Needless to say I was entertained for the rest of the day!

Tuesday

On Tuesday I was introduced to a whole new realm of the agency. One of the strategic planning teams (ABC) lost their intern due to the fact that she couldn't get credit and it is California state law that unpaid interns get credit. Since this is the team my sister works for and she happened to leave for vacation this week, the team was really in need of an intern to help pick up some slack. I volunteered and was thrown into a project working with radio estimates on a spreadsheet. Going back to the whole "diversity management" concept, I found myself checking for stations skewed toward the minority audiences. These stations had to be formatted into another spreadsheet and faxed over to a company that keeps tabs on what kind of advertising goes toward minorities. I don't quite know why anyone would need to keep tabs. Could it be to measure our progress as a society toward including all races. It seems like one of those anti-racist/racist acts that the new corporate culture is cultivating in the work place (a dilemma similar to affirmative action at universities.)

While I was debating the purpose of the assignment, I had a deadline to complete and typing out a load of information into an excel document is not the easiest task. So I had to disregard the contemplation of the effects of diversity management in my workplace and get some work done!

Wednesday

Wednesdays are always exciting because they bring the prospects of meetings. I am a sucker for sitting and listening to reps sell and media workers fend them off. A supervisor on the Direct TV account invited two interns to come and listen to a meeting he was having with reps from the New York Post. Although Direct TV already advertises in their publication, the Post was hoping to win more advertising dollars from Direct TV due to their recent make-over. Since the New York Times and the New York are so established, they are seldom willing to work with advertisers on new concepts such as interesting inserts, or even different sizes and scales of advertising space. The Post wants to establish itself as the New York newspaper that is willing to accept out-of-the-box advertising, and in the process, they've been hitting up advertisers to get them excited about it. The Direct TV supervisor as well as, naturally, the New York post reps, were from New York. So the meeting was rather hard to understand. But the gist of it was that Direct TV as a client does not ever meet with reps and those that work on the account rarely do. The supervisor kept establishing that he was meeting with them as favor and then, after a lot of skirting the question, divulged to the New York Post reps that Direct TV was looking to do something with CD inserts and if they presented a plan for their publication to them, they might end up on top. This apparently was also a LARGE favor and the reps left rather pleased with themselves. We were left with Andy (the Direct TV guy) telling us we should go into dermatology.

Second meeting wasn't quite so interesting. It was about the resources at our fingertips. All different sorts of media programs that we can use or access and where. Interesting, but hardly pertaining to us since most interns are restricted from accessing anything outside of their own teams.

Thursday

More summaries from the Min and Delaney reports and media week. Nothing interesting enough to recall, but a general consensus that ad page rates are going up and will continue to. Included in my summary were results of the Delaney awards...marking Ebony as the best publication of the year and TV Guide as the worst. The reasoning behind these awards came from rate of change in ad sales and basic management choices. Intersting stuff! Also I filed more insertion orders from Infiniti today.

Friday

The first time in awhile without a summer friday, friday was slow as usual. I began a massive refiling project for the ABC team and got to learn about estimates, but most of it was just paper work. Confusing stuff, and I learned that every page of an estimate could be very important in the future. There was waaay too many baked goods in the office today. Ahhhh...don't feed the interns please! I left a little early and got to start my weekend

Sixth Week July 11-14

Monday
The start of this week was kind of like a reality check. We realized we have only four weeks to complete our project, and if we wanted to finish the media plan as well as do something spectacular that would blow them away, we were going to have to buckle down and start working. I had one of my fellow interns send me her media plan for print media (seeing as I had never done one before) so that I could have a template to follow. I then went to work (again) on plotting the pricing, dates, and magazine selection on the spreadsheet (this is the type of thing that has to be done over and over again!) This was all following a planned intern meeting at 10 am. Later I had more summaries to write. I love these because I get to read all the trade publications and weed out the informatioin that is important to the print world. I read the Min and Delaney reports and Media Week and put outstanding information into my own words. And I get to catch some interesting information on the side as well. For instance, I learned about a new technology that allows for bendable electronic paper. One could insert an ad into a magazine and project images (its not advanced enough yet to actually play a commercial.) I love this kind of stuff..it is what makes advertising exciting!

Tuesday

On Tuesday I added new information about magazines being re-vamped (certain publications basically try to relaunch their magazine with different editorial to increase readership) to my summaries. I also updated rep contact lists, which wasn't the most exciting thing, but is very important. I know how it is to try and contact a rep and not get through to them!! I had computer problems the second part of the day. When they were eventually fixed I couldn't get through to the right server to assist a group member because of various security settings on the Playstation/Epson accounts! It made me angry that they wouldn't trust a poor little intern but oh well.

Wednesday

Typically the most exciting day of the week, we had the second of the series of emerging media trainings. Needless to say the interns were the first to arrive. This session was on TIVO as a way to advertise (otherwise the medium would make advertising on TV obsolete.) I have never even used a TIVO before so it was interesting to see the type of lifestyle a person could lead by simple navigation through this technology. So many choices at a person's fingertips. Luckily the TIVO people are willing to work with the advertising world (in part, due to their existing network battles.) They are now offering advertising spots that coincide with choices of consumers. Since people can search keywords (for example, cars or Ashton Kutcher,) advertisers can select stations to advertise on based on the demographics of these people. Their is also an array of types of advertisements that companies can select. For example, you can do a small box that pops up while a person is scrolling through a category, or one that is tagged to a program. They are also offering new interactive types of advertising. A pizza place (it escapes me which one) has a program built in that offers the ability to order a pizza at the touch of a button. Pretty cool, I think!

Thursday

We received news today that OMDLA won the Hilton account for media planning. There was a celebration in the afternoon. I spent some time working on the intern project and filing. Other than that it was a ridiculously slow day. But it was alright because I had to leave early (and miss a lunch and learn put on by the print group) for my oldest sister's wedding.

Friday
Summer Friday.

Fifth Week July 5-7

Tuesday

On tuesday morning I did more apple positioning. A previous temporary worker failed to enter some books in, so we had to go back through and check if the books were missing and if they were we had to contact reps. I shot out a bunch of emails to various magazines requesting checking copies. I spent some time later that morning reading articles one of the interns had found on axe body spray. I also continued to update the price chart I had been creating for the intern project. While, for some magazines, it is easy to find rate cards and media kits, I was still stumped on a few and so I spent the afternoon searching the internet and various other resources for the missing pricing. While I am doing a good job collecting this information, I am kind of confused on where to go next in the media plan. I am hoping to pick up a few tips from my group over the next week or so.

Wednesday

I started the day on the Nissan-Infiniti account and updated some positioning. It amazes me how long it takes some publications to send checking copies when they are requested. We finally received the final two missing copies for the fourth quarter and were able to complete the positioning grid. Later this day we had an intern meeting to discuss our progress on our project. The interns that were assigned to broadcast did a good job researching which cable and network television channels axe users use most and then going through what sort of content each station was expected to air for the coming season. The general consensus was that we should advertise on cable stations because space was cheap, available, and targeted toward our consumer. While we are on track with things like broadcast and outdoor media, we still haven't begun to plan our radio advertising. We did tweak the budget a little based on crosstab information. The new budget is as follows:
Total $75,000,000 Magazine - 25% = $18,750,000 OOH - 25% = $18,750,000 Cable - 20% = $15,000,000 Network - 5% = $3,750,000 Radio - 10% = $7,500,000 Internet - 10% = $7,500,000 Promotions - 5% = $3,750,000


Thursday

I started the day with some basic office work and filed insertion orders for the Nissan-Infiniti account. Later I had two conflicting meetings. I went ahead and skipped an opportunity to learn about emerging technologies and went to our weekly intern lunch and learn instead. Here we met with a manager on the playstation account from Chiat Day (the account/creative side of the agency.) He showed us various spots he had created for playstation (39 in total!) and explained the daily happenings of his jobs, benefits/downfalls, what he enjoys, and how his job affects media as a whole. Again we were reminded that pay is the major downfall of the job, and that the perks that come with working directly with the client (if they want to go out for dinner and drinks, you have to take them!) are endless. He also told us he has been working with Chiat for 5 years now, which is a long time in advertising. He happened to get an account he really gelled with, but most people move around a lot, especially when they are starting out. In most jobs this would be a bad thing, but in advertising, moving accounts and even agencies is not frowned upon. It is actually looked at as a good thing. This was an encouraging gest depending on how you looked at it, but the pay issue continued to be discouraging. In the afternoon I learned to use a program for offsiting and we cleared out a bunch of old checking copies that Apple no longer needed.

Friday

Second summer friday!