Case studies: Media planner: Andrea

Andrea works as a digital media planner at a full service digital agency in the South East. She graduated from Bournemouth University in 2006 having completed her degree in advertising and marketing communications.

My course modules at university provided me with excellent knowledge across the whole advertising industry, which obviously included aspects of media planning. I was particularly interested in digital media planning because it is an area that is very dynamic and continues to grow and develop rapidly. At the moment, social media, including Twitter and Facebook, are the big talking points, but who knows what it will be in six months’ time.

At university, I was introduced to industry professionals at regular guest lectures and was encouraged to undertake work experience whenever possible. Bournemouth University has an excellent reputation in the media industry and the school’s links with industry professionals have proven very useful.

So far in my career I have had three jobs in media planning. With each job I have gained greater responsibility and my career has progressed accordingly.

In my current role, I am taking on more strategic responsibilities and, as a result, I am involved in activities that require me to understand the target audience in detail in order to deliver highly effective media plans. Typical tasks that I am involved in include reporting on media activity relating to clients’ campaigns, creating media briefs, developing detailed media plans and presenting them to clients. Because my role is digitally focused, I have also had to set up and manage pay per click search engine campaigns and of, course, understand the associated website coding and tracking technologies to ensure that campaigns are monitored correctly.

To be successful as a media planner, you need to have a relevant degree and qualifications combined with a passion for and interest in the industry. Undertaking appropriate work experience is invaluable as it puts the theory and learning into practice and shows you the day-to-day reality of the job. Work experience also helps you to pick up the basics in media planning jargon, which is a major advantage when starting a career in this field. Most media planning roles require you to have strong communication skills and to be a confident presenter. You also need a good understanding of numbers as a lot of tasks involve making calculations for things like results, media spend and return on investment.

I would recommend that anyone preparing for an interview for a media planning post prepare themselves to demonstrate their interest and understanding of the industry at interview. They may well be asked by the interviewer to identify an effective advertising campaign and explain why they think it is effective from a media planning point of view. Therefore, keeping up to date with industry news is very important because, although you can build on and develop things like presentation skills, a genuine interest in the industry can’t really be taught.

Although the hours are often long and working to deadlines can be stressful, being a media planner is extremely satisfying and I enjoy the variety that each day brings.