Ollie is Medialab’s Senior AV Executive, having joined back in August straight from his A-Levels. Ollie had previously been with Medialab in 2021 completing some work experience. Here he takes us through what a typical Thursday looks like at one of the UK’s leading independent media agencies.

PRE-MORNING

I am a big morning person, I’m naturally an early riser which is handy because I come from the coast. I like to get to work early; I’ll wake up around 5am (ish). Once I’m in I’ll grab a cup of tea and set out my work for the day.

MORNING

First on the agenda is to check our live campaigns. I see this as a sort of mini-stock market, making sure the campaigns are going out in good spots and sense-checking if the value of the spots has changed. You’ve got to be on top of things; as with anything in media, things can change quickly so it’s good to be reactive.

I’ll then have my check-in with my manager, and we’ll go through the tasks I am working on and if there’s anything I can pick up. I’ll then look if we have any brand campaigns live that I’m involved with because spots for these campaigns are often hand-picked, so this can involve calling up sales houses and ensuring we still have the spots secured and if there is anything else for us to access. We’re trying to build as much awareness of a campaign and by proxy, our client, as possible so getting prime, contextual spots are important for maximising reach and awareness.

LUNCH

I don’t normally take a long lunch, but I do like to get out of the office for a bit, so I’ll take a walk around either Soho or Cavendish Square. I’ll then head to Goodge Street to grab some food, there are so many vendors to choose from!

AFTERNOON

A large proportion of my afternoon will be building monitor sheets for upcoming campaigns, putting up Caria’s (the industry standard of how you book TV), building out competitor analysis or any other team requests. I enjoy building out monitor sheets as I find it interesting to use formulas to understand the value of being on certain stations and seeing how many TVRs (TV ratings) we are aiming for on certain stations and sales houses.

I then have a few meetings; everyone is usually in on a Thursday, so we like to take advantage of this and have face-to-face meetings. I like to get the bulk of my work done in the morning so that the afternoon can be given to prepping for and following up on meetings.

We then have our weekly Collablab, which occurs every Thursday. It’s an interesting session today, our Director of Integration, Nick, is presenting the next wave of findings for our ongoing Navigating the Big Squeeze research. This is an ongoing project outlining changing audience opinions throughout the cost-of-living crisis. I believe he’s rolling this out across our client base next week, so it’s great to see the research beforehand.

EVENING

I’ll usually head to the gym or, if the weather is nice, I’ll go for a swim and maybe jump on the paddle board (although this is more common when I’m working from home!). I live so close to the beach so it’s a very quick journey.

IF YOU WEREN’T AT MEDIALAB, WHAT WOULD YOU BE DOING?

If I wasn’t working in the media industry, I would definitely want to be playing rugby professionally!

WHAT WOULD YOU SAY TO SOMEONE LOOKING TO GET INTO THE MEDIA INDUSTRY?

Definitely look into some free courses, such as Thinkbox TV Masters, Google Analytics and Fundamentals! Soak up as many free courses as you can because that can really help your understanding when you enter the media planning and buying space. Then, seems obvious, but be yourself!