Sofia Guimaraes

Country of origin: Portugal

Placement: GlaxoSmithKline

My role was as an Oral Care Brand and Shopper Marketing Executive in GSK’s consumer healthcare business. Essentially this meant that I worked across two very different areas of marketing (shopper and brand), where my responsibilities were completely different and I reported into two different managers.

From a brand marketing perspective, I was part of the Aquafresh brand team where my main responsibilities involved analysing performance data and supporting the implementation of the brand strategy. I took on some very exciting projects such as managing and leading the launch of our Sugar Acid Protection campaign internally and within certain retailers such as, Tesco and Boots. I also had the opportunity to lead the digital media strategy of Aquafresh’s partnership with Disney’s new film launched in July: Inside Out.

From a shopper perspective, I supported the Oral Care Shopper Manager in planning and implementing our shopper marketing activities in Tesco and Sainsbury’s, for all of GSK’s oral care brands (Aquafresh, Sensodyne, Pronamel, Corsodyl etc). I would work with our internal teams and Tesco and Sainsbury’s media agencies to create the artwork and get it to the point-of-sale you see in-store.

The differences between shopper and brand are significant and it wasn’t always easy to manage the two but it was an incredible opportunity for me to develop important skills: time management, organisation, communication, flexibility, problem-solving and team work. Not many placement students get the chance to work in two different areas of marketing in one year.

One of the objectives I had for my placement was to make it as well rounded as possible, meaning that I wanted to explore as many areas of marketing as I could. Looking at my year overall, I worked in brand, shopper, digital and towards the end I even did some shadowing within category marketing! This gave me the opportunity to understand how these different areas work together to achieve the overall business goals. To be a great manager in the future, you need to understand this and if it starts during a placement year, you’re one step ahead.

My placement was an amazing and fundamental to complete my university experience. Having worked for one of the top pharmaceutical and consumer healthcare companies, with experienced people who I was able to learn from, has been a great contribution to the start of my career. Although working across such different areas of marketing was at times a challenge, it gave me the opportunity to learn so much more than I was expecting. I would recommend anyone who has the chance to do it! You will never learn as much as you do on-the-job. It gives you the chance before you even graduate to understand whether the idea you had about a certain role is actually correct and if that really is what you want to do.