Hi fellow students!
My name is Kai-Wen, a second year Communication Science student, who would like to share an incredible internship at Yamaha with you all!
To give you some background information, here’s an introduction of the company:
Yamaha Motor Corporation is a global leader in the automotive and leisure industries with a tradition of excellence and innovation spanning more than half a century. Yamaha was founded in Japan in 1955, aiming to continue to push the limits of engineering and design to deliver cutting-edge products that redefine performance and reliability. The brand is known for its wide range of motorized electric products, including motorcycles, jet skis, outboards and motorized bicycles. At the heart of Yamaha’s success is a relentless pursuit of quality and a passion for exceeding customer expectations and enriching lives through mobility and leisure products. Yamaha Engines Europe N.V., with regional headquarters in the Netherlands, is responsible for Yamaha’s business in Europe, including the sales, marketing and distribution of Yamaha products.
My Role at Yamaha
During my internship at Yamaha, I was a part of the Digital Experience and Analytics team within the Marketing department. Our domains’ aim is to improve users’ digital experience and keep content accurate. I had multiple responsibilities, providing extensive digital experience and analytics experience:
● I participated in managing content on Yamaha Motor Europe’s 30+ European websites, which gave me hands-on experience in designing attractive web page content and layout via Adobe Experience Manager.
● I created and optimized email campaigns templates based on Yamaha’s preference for automated processes, which provided me with hands-on experience in developing an effective digital advertising strategy.
● Weekly tasks involved coordinated and facilitated the timely adaptation and publication of relevant European content into the local websites.
● I created monthly digital reports by the end of every month evaluating the Yamaha digital data tracked through Adobe Analytics and Looker Studio.
Learning and Growth
My internship at Yamaha provided me with a valuable and challenging learning experience. The main takeaways from this internship are:
● Communication skills: This is one of the most important skills in the workplace as it could help to unblock work by not being afraid to ask questions and task resources.
● Digital data analysis: It is one of the hard skills that I had learned the most via participating in the digital data reporting every month using the Adobe Analytics tool. This provided me with the opportunity to grow into a career as a digital data analyst.
● Email marketing campaign: Through involvement in the task of creating email marketing campaign templates for 30+ European webmasters using the Adobe Campaign Standard tool, I have learned to create appealing and persuasive email marketing campaigns.
● Website content implementation: As the growth in digital technologies, website content development becomes an important factor for the success in various sectors of companies. During the participation in managing Yamaha’s 30+ European websites, it prepared me for my future career as a multi-skilled person.
My Internship Research
The research that I had conducted during my internship is about exploring the impact of red color usage on e-commerce enhancing consumers’ brand attitude and purchase intention in the context of Yamaha’s e-bike product page. This research is relevant for workers in the marketing field in the e-commerce industry. This is because it shows the influence of the color used on the company website, specifically, black versus red web pages used on the visitors’ brand attitude and their decision-making. This could therefore help companies in the e-commerce industry decide on the feasibility of opting to use the color red version on their website to maximize user experience. It is also relevant for Yamaha, as they have found the color used on their website an important issue to be solved.
Final Thoughts
Through the half year of internship at Yamaha, I have some tips for future interns:
Open communication with your supervisor: Do not be afraid to voice your concerns to the host supervisor if you are feeling overwhelmed or would like to work on more difficult tasks. By being honest about my interests and worries, I was able to gain more opportunities and worthwhile experiences.
Expand your network: Building relationships can yield insightful information and open up a lot of doors for your future career, therefore, it is precious to take advantage of opportunities to connect with people, whether over a coffee break or during a company event.