Soaring to new heights at Discovery

By Dean’s Intern Carly Ferreira at Discovery Communications

My Time on the Media Strategy and Analytics Team (Rotation #2)

I truly have learned so much in so little time. On September 8^th, I walked into the doors of the huge Discovery Communications building, ready and excited to embrace my next adventure. I was excited to be back here but knew it would be a different experience. During the summer, I was on the insights and research team and absolutely loved my time there, working on consumer insights and research. My new team, however, was much bigger. The media strategy and analytics team was now 35-40 people and I was the only intern. I also knew absolutely nothing about media strategy and analytics, but I remained open minded and eager to learn, which soon paid off.

It didn’t take me too long to realize that media strategy and analytics has its own lingo. PPWs, CSRFs, and GRPs were acronyms that were constantly thrown around and I had no idea what they meant. However, several training sessions later, I learned what each of them were and even was able to fill out my own cut sheet request form (CSRF) by the end of the week, which I was very proud of. By the end of two weeks, I also had learned about scheduling graphics and promos, which was extremely interesting and was something I never thought I’d be able to do.

Within a few weeks, I was also able to help with some really neat projects. For example, I worked on an important project for Civis Analytics and also am currently working on helping with a new Discovery Channel campaign we have coming out for Racing Extinction. I also am responsible for Pathmatics reports each month (which track creative off-air campaigns for top networks) and have been working on a Comcast conversions project for the research team.

Overall, I have loved my experience working at Discovery Communications thus far and I think a lot of the reason why my internship experience has been so successful is because of the managers I’ve had the pleasure of working with. Both Lauren (my manager for the insights team) and John (my manager for media strategy & analytics) have been so helpful and supportive. For example, they always answer any questions I may have, offer valuable career advice, and truly want to help me grow as a fellow co-worker and individual. Both of them have made this internship experience unforgettable and worthwhile.

As for the spring, I am currently trying to decide which team I’d like to end my rotational internship with, so stay tuned!

Until next time,

Carly