Saturday, July 28, 2007

THQ Experience

Week 3 is over in my internship. My responsibilities are starting to pick up. One of the full time brand managers unexpectedly departed due to a personal issue (she moved pretty far from the office) and I was honored to be tapped to pick up her responsibilities to manage some of the Pixar titles. The experience has been a rapid engrossment of how a brand manager of a licensed property manages the license relationship. It requires alot of coordination with Pixar and Disney to keep everyone on the same page on how we are marketing the property (I do not want to announce the property due to confidentiality restrictions).

In addition to these new responsibilities I am now creating Creative Briefs for 2 new video games that will be released late 2008. A creative brief is a summary document that informs all key parties (sales, PR, and marketing) about the product, the competitive environment, and how we plan to market the title. I am sure in the grand scheme of things, the creative brief is only a small part of the marketing plan, but right now I am feeling the pressure to do a fantastic job. I am sure after a few are under my belt, they will soon seem routine.

I have also completed my research related to drivers for sales of video games based on licensed TV shows. I am not going to disclose my results (again confidentiality), but at first I was frustrated with the results of a comprehensive data set. After discussions with my supervisor, I began to see some of the benefits of my research and I will be able to pull a number of key lessons from my study. I think this is one of the benefits of deciding to work with a supervisor who has worked with marketing juggernaut Proctor & Gamble.

Another project on the burner: THQ is having a "take your kids to work day" on Aug. 10. Our other kids intern, Anthony, had a great idea to conduct a focus group with some of the kids. He took the initiative to submit a proposal for this study, but I am happy to participate in learning what makes kids tick when playing video games. At a minimum this should be a fun and great learning experience.

That's it for now, but I will try to keep you up to date on my internship experiences.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Are you guys making "Horton Hears a Who".

Canada-US MBA said...

It would unprofessional to comment on anything that isn't public. That said kid's titles are a big part of THQ's success.