London Calling!

After what has been one of the best weeks of my life, I have to say London has grown on me! Arriving on Sunday with what seemed like enough clothes and bags to last me a month, let alone a week I braved the tube. Luckily I didn't get lost and managed to get to where I was staying with very little bother, but an aching arm and a dislike for my dated wobbly suitcase. I spent the rest of the day resting and preparing for an early night ready for my first day at my two week work placement in the Debenhams Head Office Marketing Department.

This was were I came across the London transport system in rush hour. It took 5 full tubes for me to be able to get onto one. I managed to find the place alright and got there on time, which is always a bonus. I met the team and after some introductions, tours and inductions I was ready to start work. I was given some research tasks to do on the computer, which gave me a chance to rekindle my Microsoft office skills, which is always a good thing when being based in an office. I then was taken to a room with all of the old advert outfits in and had to organise each section into each division such as: menswear, womenswear, childrenswear, accessories and home. I then had to price the items so that they could be sold in a charity shop which supported Breast cancer. Sadly this task took a lot longer than anticipated as I forgot to take off all of the original price tags and had to go through them a total of three times. After this I met more of the team and was sent on a mission to go up and down Oxford Street and write down what stood out in the shop windows, such as trends, promotions, advertisements, colours and discounts. I honestly did not know how large Oxford Street was! And after going down one side and up the other I think I became acquainted with every shop there. And also had racked up a dream spend of well over £5000!!!! (Don't worry, I was professional and only bought a £1.15 bottle of Coke!) Upon my return I started on a power point on all of the trends I saw, I decided to focus upon the most popular and gave examples of stores which were using these tactics, trends and such. I must have done something right as my new boss was impressed and even showed her own boss who was also impressed! All in all, a successful first day!

The second day was a little different to the first, in the sense that the Marketing team was in a whole floor meeting all day and unable to give me any jobs to do. So I began my day in the other head office team, inside their Oxford Street Store. I had a two hour long induction, including all of the dull and cheesy health and safety videos, which I must have seen about a million times seeing as I work for the company already! I was then sent to the Business and Selling Support department and got to assist their manager by looking at details for her, and also ordering new staff uniforms, which was an easy enough task, but made all the more difficult by an unhappy computer who decided to run about 1mph! I then spent some time talking to various department managers, one of which thought I was actually a manager myself! I wish! After that I went onto the sales floor and learned about how their own menswear department was ran, what standards they carried out, what brands they carried, and how they handled their own staff members. I have to say it was completely different to how my own menswear department is run, in the matter of standards, policies, recovery and even sales preparation. Because I am bias, I do think I prefer how my own department does it! Again, my second day wasn't too bad, but I'd basically just done my own job without getting paid for it.

On the third day I was back in head office, where I was supposed to be. I was impressed as I'd managed to catch a train AND get a seat. But then swiftly realised it was heading in the opposite direction I was supposed to be traveling. I swiftly left the train at the next station and headed in the correct way. Unfortunately the whole seat thing was a fluke, but I did manage to squash myself onto the next train. Today at work I met the man who voices the Debenhams CD! I have to say I was a little star struck! For my main task I learned about the database that the marketing team uses to place job requests for advertisement that they then send to the production team. After a few tutorials I managed to get my head around it and began to take details from clients and other stores and put them onto the database, filled out the correct forms and emailed them to the production team to create them. I had to make my instructions as clear as possible in order for the brief to be correctly achieved. Once the production team had completed the task they then sent a digital and hard copy over for my to proof read and check over. If I didn't like something I would write on the changed and send it back, but if it was all okay I would sign it off and return it for the production team to send to the printers. I only had to send one thing back, but the rest was alright. In total I think I sorted out about 5 advertisements and a computer desktop background. I don't think I did too badly. I then had to proof read magazine and newspaper advertisements for our upcoming sale and ensure all of the prices and details were correct and spelt correctly, and sign them off so they could be sent to the relevant papers to be printed. (So if you see a Debenhams advertisement in the Sun on Thursday 9th June, I proofed that!)  After that I then began to create a spreadsheet on given information about brand identity's, target audience profiles, ages, and what the brand is about. I didn't manage to finish all of it so I'd be picking up this task tomorrow. All in all, a very good day!