Brand Marketing Review

I truly loved my year at Mattel! The fast-paced consumer environment I worked in gave me a real insight into the marketing world. My role in Brand Marketing was very broad and allowed me to work with most departments in the UK and many in Europe on key high impact initiatives.

I built quite a lot of internal relationships with people throughout the organisation from high profile directors to the post man, so I felt pretty valued most of the time. There were a handful of times I felt a little undervalued as an individual, but praise at other times offset that.

I had a management change midway through my year, but this did not affect the type of support I got, as HR ensured I was getting all the support I needed from various colleagues. Each manager I did have gave well formed feedback and guidance on how to improve my performance and had a real interest in my personal development.

When I first started it was quite slow, but when I asked I was given several tasks to complete. Towards the end of placement I had a lot of different projects spanning across various brands which at times did get a little stressful, but as soon as I asked for support - I did receive it.

At the end of placement I essentially owned the day-to-day practices of some of the UK's largest toy brands, which was an amazing opportunity. I presented various marketing plans to key internal and external players giving me great exposure.

There was quite a lack of explicit training offered, however I did learn a lot generally from the job, including presentation techniques.

The office went through stages of extreme excitement to very quiet depending on the time of year and how busy everyone was. There's a lot of social activities that happen each month including fancy dress, themed lunches and bun runs (cake brought to your desk!).

There was a lot of structure from HR and scheduled catch ups with managers to ensure everything was running smoothly. It's really as organised as you make it, if there's something you want to do or have responsibility of - ask!

We had one training session at the beginning of the year which focused on self development. There were other courses available for permanent members of staff, but these weren't offered to interns. However, if there is something I wanted to learn or develop, I could usually ask - albeit on the job training.

Mattel has taken on a few interns from the last few years, but doesn't strictly offer graduate jobs.

It's as social as you made it. Maidenhead is quite a dull town, so it's quite hard to get motivated there,

Coming from the North, I found it quite expensive. I think it's just the going rate for the south, you can find pretty decent house shares and it's only £10 for a return into London with a rail card.

There's one 'club' which is more of a local place for local people, and a handful of nice bars. Again, London is cheap to get to and you could go out in Reading or Windsor but taxis would be £20 each way.

There's a football team and various charity initiatives that Mattel get involved in such as the Toy Trust - which was pretty fun. They usually have a social every month.