Chicago Bound 5: The Job

HSR – a business to business (B2B) advertising agency – hired me to be a media planner in their Chicago office. While I have bosses, they are in the Cincinnati offices, so I’m technically the highest ranking media person in Chicago for this agency. Coming from a consumer planning background, I do have some B2B planning experience, but the two are very different to plan for. I won’t go into the specifics of my job – that would be boring – but it’s an enjoyable career that I’ve been doing for a number of years now.

The job has worked me harder than I imagined that it would, but part of that comes from resources and experience. They have the experience, but aren’t necessarily always aware of the resources available to them. That said, what they have they have in abundance. For example, my work computer is a 15” macbook pro – which eliminated my need for my first big purchase after getting a job, which was going to be a new computer. I also have two assistants at my disposal – one of which was hired in with me – who are very important in the planning process and daily maintenance of the job.

Socially, the group is small and tight. I was invited to bowling the first full week that I was on the team (and bowled terribly), and got to meet a good chunk of the team. Great people. Tons of fun to hang out with in the office and outside.

I was then invited to a cocktail party from Conde Nast for media planners at Sub 51 (just blocks away from my office). To give you an idea about this venue, Sub 51 has a sign on the door that says “appropriate attire required” and the patrons are very well dressed and probably make more money than I do. But since Conde Nast was putting on the cocktail party, everything for me was free. It’s amazing who you meet and what you talk about when you have access to unlimited booze and a whole lot of bite-sized dishes being served by a very capable college co-eds. You get to talk about the business and I was able to learn more about several of my clients through the reps and other planners in the room. Excellent networking opportunity.

I was put in charge of the largest client in the Chicago office and have spent the last several weeks learning as much as I could about the client in order to put together a media day and a pre-planning deck for the client. As I write this, I already gave a presentation that lasted from 8am-4pm (thankfully, I wasn’t talking the whole time). This has limited my time to work on comics (notice that @$$hole! Hasn’t updated in a few weeks? Yeah, this is why), and to explore the city in greater detail.