A-Level student, Ollie White, recently spent a few days in the Medialab offices, to get a first-hand experience of what working in a data driven marketing company is all about. Safe to say we were lucky to have him, and we hope that we left an equally good impression…

Tuesday

8:45am

I arrived 15 minutes early and was greeted by the office manager, Tatum, who was really welcoming and helpful. I had lots of silly questions, but none was silly enough! Tatum wanted to answer any questions I had, and she was amazingly supportive, helping me throughout the week and checking in to make sure I had everything I needed and was getting on OK.

I first met with one of Medialab’s Account Executives and we went through what a day in their life looks like, and what their responsibilities are. I was then introduced to their team and line manager; the rest of team introduced themselves and explained their different roles which gave me a great oversight of how everyone works together; there was lots of chat about working from home.

Lunch

After lunch, I worked with George who took me through platforms like Adsearch, showing me how they work with them. I also got to sit in on a client strategy meeting in the afternoon, which was a brilliant learning experience seeing how the teams work together first-hand.

There’s a great learning culture here, everyone is willing to learn and listen. They’ve got an incredibly talented team of specialists, so you’re always learning different things from different people. It’s the best way to get a first taste of office life!

Wednesday

Morning

My second day in the office brought me to the AV team, who were all incredibly welcoming and inclusive. I was taught about how they plan their ads going out (it reminded me of an extremely complicated TV guide!), the best practice around ad placing for different brands, and some of the language they use within the team. AV definitely caught my eye and piqued my interest as an area that I might want to specialise in – I’m sure the team banter helped!

Lunch

Lunch today I was out with Medialab’s Executive Director, Steve, who took the time to check in and make sure things were going well and that I was enjoying the experience. Marcus, Alex and Ben, who founded the company, also set aside time to sit down with me and ask how everything was going. I thought that was really nice of them and they’re proper down to earth guys.

After lunch, I met with two people from ITV who took me through everything that Medialab have to do with ITV. They showed me clever ways to make the most of advertising, what works and why. This was a brilliant session, and their knowledge was incredible – really passionate people, which was infectious.

Thursday

Morning

Senior Account Executive, Lucy, took me under her wing for Thursday morning, and I was able to shadow her meetings, and chat to her team about all things Medialab. It was great to hear about some of the amazing benefits of working at Medialab; such as a day off for Mental Health Awareness Day, the annual Sport’s Day, and the countless training sessions available, to name a few.

Lunch

On Thursdays Medialab have a weekly session called Lunch & Learn, whereby internal or external speakers will come in and talk to the company. This week’s guest was from DCM Studios, which was particularly exciting for me as I’ve always been obsessed with cinema, so seeing how they adapt their adverts for different content/films was great to see. The Jurassic park/Spiderman examples really worked well!

In the afternoon I had an introduction with Radioworks and we discussed how radio and radio advertising is evolving, which I found really interesting as someone hoping to specialise in AV, so I appreciated my time with them. I asked a lot of questions, which in hindsight may have been annoying.

It’s been a brilliant introduction into the world of media, and it’s been whirlwind of learning. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed my first taste of office life, and it’ll certainly be strange to head back to school on Monday!

If you weren’t looking to pursue a career in AV media, what would you be doing?

Scrum half for Harlequins, but wouldn’t say no to a season in New Zealand for the Blues