This month’s we sat down with media Account Executive, Aimee Williamson, for our Day in the Life chat. Aimee tells us why you shouldn’t go into new roles with your blinkers on and why it’s important not to be too hard on yourself in the first few months in a media agency.

What led you to a career in media?

I’ve always been quite creative leaning. Following an English and Drama degree at university, I was lucky enough to get a graduate placement in film marketing at Warner Brothers. For a year I got to learn about international marketing for Warner Brother’s European cinema releases. As part of my placement, I worked alongside media agencies and was even able to spend a couple of days in the agencies themselves, learning about how they run and the role they play.

When I started at Warner Brothers, I thought I’d landed my dream job straight out of uni. But I quickly realised that there were so many options out there in the world of marketing, entertainment and media that I hadn’t realised even existed. When my placement ended, I was drawn to experiencing advertising from the other side and working in agencies. I wanted to work in a smaller, independent agency so I could gain experience across multiple channels, rather than being siphoned into one small area of the business. That’s how I found MI Media!

What does a typical day look like for you?

A lot of my role involves client communication: being open with feedback about how campaigns are working, what we recommend changes and what they need from us over the coming weeks and months.

To be able to do this effectively, I have to be across our reporting and planning. I pull together reports on our TV and press activity, monitoring how current activity is performing and working with the sales houses to make any changes we need. Alongside this, I work with the team to use the data from current activity to plan our campaigns three to four months head of time, considering how we can optimise activity or try something new.

More recently, I’ve been getting involved in digital channels; doing daily pacing, monitoring to see if we’re meeting target costs and putting together performance reports. It’s been great to get the chance to work across a new team and try a different channel mix. Having the opportunity to learn digital alongside the offline channels I work on is really valuable.

What mistake have you learnt the most from?

When I joined MI, I expected to understand everything quickly. I was being too harsh on myself if I didn’t pick things up straight away. But I came into this role with no media knowledge or experience and there’s a lot to learn, especially in those first few months when all sorts of acronyms and channels are thrown at you. It’s easy to be hard on yourself, but this is just the nature of the work. You will learn.

As I’ve settled into the role, I’ve also learnt that every client wants to be treated differently. At first, I was just sending reports in the exact same way to every client but I quickly learned that while some may want lots of detail, others are looking for an overview. You can’t expect to have the same routine to cover every client but must learn to adapt depending on who you’re communicating with.

Who’s your role model and why?

Having an older sister is like having a built-in role model in life. I’ve always looked up to her Every good decision she makes I can follow, and every bad decision she makes I can learn from. God I hope she doesn’t read this!