Louisa Brody, '09

Marketing intern gains insight into the mechanics of magazine publishing

November 5, 2009

As a marketing intern with U.S. News and World Report, Louisa Brody came to understand how a magazine’s cover affected its buying power.

“Whoever said, ‘Don’t judge a book by its cover,’ didn’t work for the magazine industry,” she said.

Brody, who is double majoring in leadership studies and history, decided to pursue an internship with the media because she had always been fascinated by it. She had been reading The New York Times ever since she was in middle school, she said, and understood how the media was a leader in shaping the public's perception of events.

“I think it’s really important to ensure that the media is doing a fair job to portray those events,” she said. “It plays a much bigger role than people give it credit for.”

She was working at the company’s New York corporate headquarters in the summer, where she spent the first half of her internship working with the marketing department, and the second half working with the consumer marketing and circulation department.

“I created my own opportunity,” she said. “I made my own destiny and sought out people who needed me.” She had switched departments because she realized she could contribute most to circulation, where she was tracking newsstand sales and doing competitive analysis. She then used online databases to make projections.

“I love doing competitive analysis,” she said. “I find it fascinating. If I had never gone into consumer marketing I would have never seen that.”

One of her assignments was to do an analysis of companies that had placed ads with Time and Newsweek – the magazine’s main competitors – but not with U.S. News. She composed briefs about the magazine’s readership and the companies’ advertising strategies. The sales team then used those briefs to encourage the companies to buy space with U.S. News.

“It was fun seeing how everything came together – marketing an idea and explaining how a reader would be attracted to it,” she said. “This was where Jepson’s focus on analytical work and creative thinking really came into play.” 

She specifically referred to her Critical Thinking and Group Dynamics courses. During her internship she often didn’t realize how much of what she had learned in classes was being played out, she said, but understood the impact once she was called to reflect on the internship later.

Brody also got to work on a side project for the manufacturing department, where she analyzed two different kinds of magazine binding to see whether it made a difference in a magazine’s quality of advertizing. “I had to figure out a way to come up with a hypothesis and reach a conclusion,” she said. “This took a lot of analytical thought.”

Brody has been heavily involved on campus ever since she returned to complete her last year at the University of Richmond, working as a WCGA Senator, chairwoman of the external affairs committee and Alumni Ambassador. After she completes her degree in May, she said she hoped to return to New York and work with the media.

“I think one of the things that was great about working with U.S. News was that I had a lot of respect for the publication itself and its work and the message it worked to portray,” she said. “It was exciting to know that whatever I was doing was helping to bring quality news to subscribers, and visitors to the Web site.”

Article ID: 490