Cooper Alley.
After spending the last month interning at leading independent media agency, The Media Store, Cooper Alley pens his reflections on what a career in media could look like for him and how he got here. He is the son of award-winning media executive Jacquie Alley, COO of The Media Store, an agency that was founded by his grandfather Warren Hill almost 30 years ago in 1997.
“No-one choses media, they fall into it.”
This is a phrase I’ve heard a plethora of times by numerous people in my first month in media. From studying a Bachelor in Sports and Exercise Science to working and learning from the extraordinary team at The Media Store, this saying couldn’t be more applicable to me and my experience.
As a third-generation media person, my fall into media was a little less random and perhaps more a case of destiny. It was oddly familiar, like entering a legacy I’ve lived alongside all my life. The vocabulary, the deadlines, rehearsing presentations. All things that are ambient noise from childhood.
In my first month interning at The Media Store, I didn’t just learn the technical skills required in today’s fast-paced digital landscape, like data analysis and campaign launching and planning, but also the deeper, often unspoken nuances of the media industry that only come with lived experience.
My family background means that I carry the weight and wisdom of legacy, but also the responsibility to evolve with it. Watching how strategy meets creativity in client meetings, how deadlines shape storytelling, and how metrics guide innovation, I begin to see how the principles my grandfather and mother lived by, ethics, intuition, and audience connection, still matter, even in the age of algorithms and automation. This first month wasn’t just about learning various tools; it’s about understanding how to honour tradition while speaking the language of now.
Transitioning from a Bachelor of Sports and Exercise Science at UTS into the media industry, a field which was seemingly worlds apart, was, at first, incredibly daunting. I found myself grappling with doubts: Would I be behind those who had studied marketing? Would I be able to keep up with the workload?
These questions played on repeat in the lead-up to my first day. But once I stepped into The Media Store, those fears quickly began to fade. I discovered that I wasn’t at a disadvantage, and I could handle the work just as well as anyone else. The skills I developed at university; critical thinking, communication, and problem-solving, proved surprisingly transferable to the media industry. More importantly, I soon learnt that success in this field isn’t taught in a lecture hall but is largely acquired on the job. This was thanks, in large part, to the incredibly supportive and patient team around me at
The Media Store, who took the time to guide me, and to my own inner drive to succeed. The combination of guidance from others, transferable skills from university, and a refusal to let fear define my experience proved more valuable than any specific degree.
What’s struck me most is how much the industry has changed, and how much it hasn’t. I see echoes of my grandfather’s newsroom hustle in the urgency of campaign turnarounds today. I hear my mum’s stories of late-night edits in the collaborative chaos of a pitch war room. But now, it’s data dashboards and AI tools alongside intuition and creativity.
There’s a constant tension between instinct and innovation, and I love it. I’ve learned more in four weeks than I ever expected: from decoding agency lingo to watching brilliant minds shape ideas that shift culture. It’s overwhelming and addictive in equal measures.
My time at The Media Store was spent moving through the various teams learning what they do and why, attending meetings and getting spoiled at lunches and coffee rendezvous by publishers. It is an agency rooted in independence, powered by ideas and driven by people. They are truly ‘re-imagining media’.
The media industry is a broad and fantastic industry that I don’t think tells its story well enough. It’s exceptional at crafting other people's narratives but often fails to create and share its own. The irony is that the very industry built on shaping perception hasn’t shaped its own. The number of niches and middlemen/women that young, lost people like me don’t know exist is a shortcoming of the industry as a whole. It is beautiful, intricate and exciting profession that many people don’t know about.
I’m unsure of exactly where I will land in the vast media landscape, but if my experience at The Media Store is any indicator of what media and, specifically, agency life is like, then I’m excited to get started and learn more.
I feel proud to carry this family legacy forward, not by replicating the past, but by reimagining what media can mean now. If month one is any indicator, I’m exactly where I’m meant to be.
On that note, I’m now actively looking for an entry-level role in a Sydney media agency, so if you know of an opportunity, I’d love to connect!