Internship Experience at The Walt Disney Co.
Saloni Bhogale, a digital marketing enthusiast describes her glamorous experience during a social media marketing internship at The Walt Disney Co. which she bagged in a rather unusual way.
How I landed the internship:
As I was scouring for an internship in marketing in December 2013, one random search on Twitter with ‘#internship #Mumbai’ led me to a tweet which informed me about a requirement for an intern in the social media team of The Walt Disney Co. I applied right away to the mentioned addresses attaching a covering letter with my resume.
I try to include a covering letter each time I apply, either as an attachment or in the body of the mail itself. Though time consuming, I feel it makes your application stand out among others.
Interview and Selection:
In a couple of days, I was called to Disney’s head office in Lower Parel for an interview. It lasted about 15 minutes, where they asked basic questions about my college and why I wanted this internship. Very chilled indeed. Next they asked me to create content for them, along with a 300 word write up on anything before they could select me. Being overly excited, I sent in everything the very next day, and after another 10 minute interview, I was in!
You don’t need to look extremely formal for interviews in media companies. Jeans and a shirt is more than enough. My boss told me later that sometimes, in creative fields, it’s more about expression. So even sporting your favourite rock band t-shirt would serve the purpose!
The Internship:
I can undoubtedly say that the two months at Disney UTV were one of the best experiences of my life! I got to work on a lot of content for Facebook, G+ and Twitter profiles for them which included brands like Disney, UTV, Bindass, Marvel and Star Wars, some of them which feature on the top 5 pages in India in terms of audience. I was taught to use various tools and analytics used to perform the tasks.
But the real icing on the cake was the assignment to create new content for UTV pages. Like for instance, I had to take short interviews with a host of Bollywood biggies! I personally got the chance to chat and interact with Farhan Akhtar, Vidya Balan, Madhuri Dixit, Parineeti Chopra, Sidharth Malhotra and many more! Also I had to live tweet from a Filmfare event wherein I had to ask a lot A-listers to pose for pictures and selfies which would be shared on the platform! The best part was Ranveer Singh (the love of my life!) going on about how he had polished his own shoes that day and how dashing he was looking *starstruck*!
Another assignment was to watch all of the 6 Star Wars movies and create content for their fan pages. Being a science fiction fan, I don’t know how I shy-ed away from these movies before! I could watch them during work hours as well, and for about one week we had to create content which had to get approval from the global teams!
Lastly, there was the daily creation of content for Disney and Bindass. This was perhaps the best part. There was a lot to learn, a lot of different tactics to try to get maximum engagement from two very different types of an audience. I could find out which state, age group etc my audience would belong to and create content accordingly. There were contests to be done, brainstorming for the yearly plan for social media among others. One random day I also found myself in a meeting where they were writing a script for one of their latest shows on Bindass. Another day, there was a marketing meeting by Disney’s global team. There were endless opportunities to learn here!
Work usually went about like a breeze. The office was full of buzz and chatter. I remember one day, people wanted to randomly order cake. A 2 kg cake was brought in, a happy-birthday-to-you was sung for some random fellow as we devoured the heavenly cake!
Though work was also hectic, I was told in the beginning itself that I will have to work from home on weekends as well. But that was the opportunity cost I had agreed to pay to be a part of this truly incredible experience!
My advice to everyone is apply well in advance, and remember an internship is the best time to experiment, even if it is something completely different from your discipline as a student. As long as you are willing to learn and show enthusiasm to contribute, there are enough companies who will be happy to have you work with them!
FYI! You can view the latest Internships in Mumbai here.
