Here You Can: Intern

My name is Allison Eckel and I am a senior Strategic Communication/PR major with a minor in Digital Media Engagement. As a Strategic Communication major, my previous internships were held at agencies including Allen & Gerritsen and Tierney. While I loved both agency experiences and doing PR for Fortune 500 clients, I knew I wanted a change of pace for my senior year and to challenge my skills in a new, exciting way.

This semester, I am the Sales and Marketing Intern for NBCUniversal Media Inc., working directly with the NBC Philadelphia market that houses NBC10 and Telemundo 62 (T62). As the Sales and Marketing Intern, I’m responsible for tracking and clipping sponsorship recaps, updating and creating marketing materials for potential sponsors, creating a brand new sales deck, tracking analytics and much more. While my role responsibilities are incredibly different than what I am used to, I would not change the opportunity for the world. Having little experience in sales, I have grown to learn and enjoy the process it takes from brainstorming new business, to creating a pitch deck (MUCH different than the kind of pitches I’m used to aka media pitches), securing the business and then creating and scheduling the advertisements for the business to air on NBC10. Throughout the last few weeks, I’ve learned some tips on how I can live up to NBC’s employee slogan, #ComeToWin.

Ask Questions

Sure, this might seem like a no brainer – but before this internship, I was never one to ask questions because I was familiar with my role. However, since the first day I sat down at my desk at the Comcast Technology Center, I almost always have a question to as my supervisor or desk neighbor. It can be as simple as asking for more work or asking questions to learn more about their day-to-day tasks and finding out where you are able to help out to take some work off their hands. Since asking questions, my supervisor has passed off some of her daily tasks to me because I made the effort to learn about them and the willingness to complete them.

Utilize the many different departments within your organization

During my first week, my supervisor and I had a meeting where we discussed the goals I had for the internship and what I wanted to learn the most. I expressed an interest in learning more about analytics and how the station measures their ratings which can affect the sales. Since then, I have been able to work with the research department to learn how they use the Nielsen ratings to pass along to the sales and marketing department who then use the numbers as selling points. I have also been tasked with tracking the analytics for NBC10’s newest lifestyle segment, “Philly Live.” Since being added to the “Philly Live” team I have been able to work closely with the digital department and even some station executives! 

Corporate employees LOVE coffee and snacks. Join in on the fun!

Now, I’m not talking about taking advantage of the fancy coffee machine that’s in the kitchen (although who doesn’t love free coffee?), rather, if someone invites you to grab a coffee or head downstairs to get some snacks before they’re gone – say YES! It took me a little bit to finally warm up to the idea of joining everyone on their coffee runs or sitting at the same lunch table (I’m very much an introvert in new situations), but once I started to say yes more, I realized that everyone is extremely passionate about getting to know the interns on a personal level and want to help out in any way they can. The better your supervisors, desk neighbors or even someone in the newsroom knows you, the better your experience will be.

Overall, this internship has been a great learning experience and I’m excited to see what else I can accomplish in the second half of my internship!