Dentsu - Associate, Planning

Question 1

Tell me about yourself.

Answer 1

• I’m from the Seattle area
• I went to the University of Washington, graduated this past spring with a major in marketing and information systems
• In school, I wanted to get more involved with the community on-campus, so i joined my school’s women in business group and the american marketing association
• Also did a two internships, one last summer at Revlon and another at an eyewear company before that, both were in the areas of brand management and marketing, which I really enjoyed
• Since I graduated, I’ve been looking for entry level roles in marketing and advertising, which is what led me here.

Question 2

Why do you want to work at Dentsu?

Answer 2

• I’ve heard that agencies are a really good place to start your career since the environment is so dynamic
• I was familiar with dentsu as one of the leading agencies in advertising
• Phone call last week, heard that the work culture is very collaborative, people cared a lot about employee development and growth
• Sounded like a great environment

Question 3

Why are you interested in this role?

Answer 3

• The job description resonates with some of my past experiences, particularly in competitive and market analysis, which I had thoroughly enjoyed
• I also liked this role seemed to be comprehensive and involved in the entire process of media planning from start to finish
• I heard that the client was Kroger, and I’ve always been interested in the CPG/food retail space
• Overall, the opportunity to explore different areas of media and expand my skills set in that was exciting to me as well

Question 4

Why are you a good fit for this role/applicable past experience?

Answer 4

• I know this position has a focus on media and market evaluation, and I did similar tasks in past internships that involved analyzing consumer trends and the competitive market
• Through that, I developed familiarity with analytical and research tools like Nielsen, which I saw was mentioned for this position as well
• Through my on-campus experiences, I developed some of those softer skills like project
  management and collaboration which I know would also be an asset to this role
• Passion for media and interest in learning more about the industry would allow me to contribute effectively to the team.

Question 5

Media planning experience

Answer 5

• Not directly in any media planning role
• Some tasks that would be part of the media planning process - like competitive research
• Revlon worked with an agency, so i’ve seen the agency-client relationship, was just on the other side of it

Question 6

Strengths

Answer 6

Curiosity and willingness to learn

• I’d say my greatest strength is curiosity and willingness to learn.
• I’ve found that this has been useful, especially in past internship experiences
• I think having a sense of curiosity helped me fully understand the business environment and the work my team was doing
• And allowed me to learn new tools and grow my skill set as well

Collaboration

• I really enjoy getting to work in a team and being able to create a strong group environment
• In team/group project settings in the past, I tried to encourage everyone to share their perspectives and bounce ideas off each other
• As well as figuring out how we could divide up tasks to leverage everyone’s strengths to work better as a group

Goal-driven

• This really helped me as I was moving through college
• I was always motivated to seek out opportunities to grow/advance, for example, regarding leadership positions in school organizations or finding internships
• I tried to push myself to seek out new experiences and get out of my comfort zone

Question 7

Weakness

Answer 7

Too absorbed

• Sometimes when I’m working on a project or a task, I can get too absorbed or consumed by it
• This isn’t great, because I’ve realized I can think better and make better decisions when I have a clear head
• To fix this, I’ve been trying to work on setting the task down and working on something else for a while to give myself some breathing room from it, and then coming back later with a different perspective

Question 8

Summary of past internship experiences

Answer 8

• Past internships were mainly brand management focused

Revlon

• It was a lot of trend and market analysis
• they were working on a campaign for the following year, which I did research for
• Sales figures/market data, social media trends, looking into market research databases/reports
• had me put together my findings in a brief that was going to the creative team
• Early stage campaign planning
• Additional: recap deck for a sponsored event, packaging product samples,

Marchon Eyewear

• Worked on brand briefs which summarized top styles, competitors bestsellers, market trends for each brand
• Was used for product development
• Extra tasks: updating SKU spreadsheets with updated pricing info, creating slides for presentations to the accounts team, filing product order forms for shipments

Question 9

Summary of extracurriculars

Answer 9

UWiB

• Director of Admin
• Administrative jobs: tracking membership and event attendance
• Email campaigns to members promoting upcoming events, design and send out and track the metrics
• Assisted with our annual fundraiser, doing the check-in and check-out process

AMA Agency

• I was part of a student marketing group, where we worked with local businesses
• I was a consultant for a few quarters, then a project manager
• Clients mostly needed help with social media and search engine optimization, so that was what we worked on

Question 10

Summary of classes

Answer 10

• The basic core classes across all areas of business (accounting, econ, etc.)
• Some information systems and digital marketing classes which taught some basic Python, SQL, and R
• Some brand management and advertising classes, consumer behavior

Question 11

What are your career goals?

Answer 11

Short term:
* Learning environment and exposure to different projects
* Gain hands-on experience in creating marketing strategies and media plans and see that process from start to finish
* In my past internship, I got some practice in working with high-level market and customer data and seeing how it was used to shape strategy and make decisions, so
* I’d love to explore the area of consumer insights more as well

Long term
* I’d hope to develop a strong foundation in marketing and found my niche in the field
* Be able to take on higher-level tasks, leadership roles
* Contribute to strategic direction and decision-making a bit more
* I’d like to still be in an environment that allows for growth opportunities and learning

Question 12

What are your interests?

Answer 12

• As far as industries: retail, e-commerce, consumer goods
• Past experience in brand marketing, definitely an area I’d like to explore more
• I’m also really interested in understanding consumer behavior, and I got some practice with that in past internships and projects in school
• I’ve also been trying to expand my marketing and digital skills on my own time
• Certifications:
• Google Analytics
• Working on a courses for digital advertising now