Last week Dentsu Aegis Network Leeds welcomed three work placement students; two of whom won The Code’s 2018 Rise Up Challenge. Learn more about The Code here: https://www.thecode-dentsu.com/

The Code brings together the power of our people and our network, to make a positive impact on society and the next generation of talent, and supports local schools and entries in the competition to help them stand out from the crowd, by sharing our own career experiences, enthusiasm and expertise. This year’s challenge saw students work on a campaign brief from Jaguar Land Rover.

In this blog take over, Ellie and Carys The Code Winners and Jessica, tell us what they got up to throughout their work experience week.

Monday 8th July…

We all met in the reception and had a welcoming introduction with Pete Coates, Head of iProspect Leeds and Jasmine Sampson, Marketing Executive for Dentsu Aegis Leeds, who would be looking after us.

In the introduction, we received a campaign brief that we would be working on throughout the week, to help us understand and gain insight into the different marketing channels. Marketing is a lot more multifaceted than we originally thought, and our schedule for the week meant we would be spending time with each department, and we were all so excited to get stuck in.

The first team we worked with was Carat Client Services, who kindly helped us with our initial brief ideas. We learnt about aspects of their job role and was shown some interesting websites to help us find audience insights. After, we had some time for brainstorming and begun to consolidate our ideas. We also had time with Dentsu Data Labs in the afternoon, who showed us the analytics behind their advertising and how they can use this to optimise and increase the effectiveness of campaigns, as well as all the other solutions they offer to drive business growth through data and technology.

It was a jam packed first day and we have learnt so much! We will be sure to get an early night… After Love Island obviously! 

Tuesday 9th July…

We began by working with iProspect Client Services who usefully helped with some of our brief ideas and then we went on to learn more about the clients they work with, and what a day in Client Services looks like. Next, we were set tasks to help understand the type of work they get up to.

In the afternoon, we got a deeper insight into Pay Per Click (PPC), as well as working with and speaking to students from different universities who are currently on their placement year, which was very useful in understanding more about the workplace, as well as understanding the opportunities in higher education.

Wednesday 10th July…

We spent the morning with Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and PR and learnt about organic search. It was interesting to see the strategies used to increase website rankings and the clients they work with. They also gave us some interesting feedback on our brief ideas ahead of our afternoon time slot preparing our brief, creating content for our pitch and gathering more information.

Within the Leeds office they send an internal memo email every week to update everyone on clients, business and people as well as thank individuals on their great work. Issy who works on reception, does a weekly walk around to gather information for the weekly memo before it is sent by marketing and this week we joined her, which gave us a further insight into how the business operates, especially now we have learnt so much in our first few days.

Thursday 11th July…

We got helpful advice from the Amplifi team, where Georgia Foster talked us through advertising on TV

platforms. Then we had the opportunity to speak to Global Radio, which was very informative and opened our eyes to the possibilities in advertising through radio AND we had the chance to speak to ITV!! This was very useful as it gave us an insight into advertising through ITV, as well as giving us sneak peek into what programmes and series they're bringing in the future.

In the afternoon, we had a presentation from the Amnet team, where we learnt more about programmatic and display advertising and looked at specific examples of their work. Lastly, we had a feedback session ahead of our upcoming pitch with Jasmine and Olivia Swift who supported us in the Rise Up Challenge. This gave us some perceptive feedback to further improve our campaign and helped calm our nerves ahead of our presentation tomorrow.

Friday 12th July…

We began the day talking to paid social, who gave us a deeper understanding of how to reach a specific digital audience as well as the difference between paid and organic social. After, we attended a meeting with News UK, which informed us about advertising with The Sun and The Times and the audiences they reach. We then did a quick run through of our presentation, before presenting later in the day to some of the senior leaders and members of the Dentsu Aegis Leeds team who supported us during our week with them. 

Our Thoughts…

Ellie Milner: "The highlight of my week was experiencing the work environment and learning all the different job roles. I learnt so much about the different sides of the industry and how all the channels are interlinked to make a good campaign. But most of all I learnt a lot about myself. I need to be more confident, I now more than before and I want to continue to pursue media as a career and there are so many possibilities for future careers in this area."

Jessica Midgley: "My highlight of the week was learning about SEO and PR. I never realised the role would be so varied in creating content for lots of different clients and writing for lots of different audiences. My advice to anyone considering a work experience placement would be to go for it and take in as much information as possible. If you are interested in a career in this industry, work experience would be a great opportunity to get insight and a deeper understanding to the different types of marketing and the different types of marketing roles."

Carys Miller: "My favourite department was Client Services because it was interesting to see how they work, and their roles are so varied. During my week with Dentsu Aegis Network Leeds I learnt about my confidence especially when preparing for the pitch. For anyone considering doing a work experience placement I would really recommend from my learnings this week especially, be confident and ask anything to anyone, no question is a silly question and the people that are supporting you were in your position at some point in their career. Not only will it help you get the most out of your experience, you can use it on your CV as valuable work experience which will stand out to future employers."

Thank you!

We would like to end this blog post with a huge thank you to everyone who helped us this week and took time out of their day to explain what they get up to, especially Jasmine who planned our timetables and supported us through the week. Overall, we found this experience very useful in deepening our understanding of what the workplace is like in a media agency, this included learning about the work environment as well as the work everyone does.

Check out The Code at https://www.thecode-dentsu.com/