Internship Week 10: The End, Well Sorta…

Well, the summer internship program at Mullen has come to an end and I can tell you that it is bitter sweet. Just as I was ready to pack up my desk, hand in my laptop and say my goodbyes, I am happy to say I will be sticking around for almost another week to help out while my supervisor goes on vacation. But as the formal intern program concludes today I like to look back on the 5 goals I set for my summer internship.Overall, I am proud to have achieved each and every one of them.

During each Summer Insight Series session I made sure to ask at least 1 question. Even when the topics were about areas I did not have a chance of pursuing, aka creative, I still asked questions that showed my interest in learning how to do my part better. Like asking the creative director and the strategist, how can your departments work best with my department?

I made sure to walk into the office everyday with a smile on and tried my best to show that I am someone they would want to work with in the future. In addition to being kind and polite, I tried to share little tidbits about myself throughout the summer and give them a sense of my personality. I shared my experiences and commitments to personal relationships.

When it came to accepting every opportunity, I took them and ran with them. Even though they weren’t much, being able to excel at even one led to another, and then to another. Last night I was updating my LinkedIn page and was happy to recognize that I was able to add two more projects into my job description just from opportunities I received after performing well.

My experience here as Mullen has been fantastic. Here are just a few of the lessons and thoughts I end my internship with that will definitely follow me as I take the next steps in my career.

5 Key Take-Aways:
1. There is so much more to advertising
Yes, there is creating campaigns. Yes, there is pitching campaigns. But working in advertising agency there is so much more. Clients pay you to not only produce great work but to act as a consultant and a partner. Agencies are not meant to act like machines in which clients can put in their order and out pops the work. Both sides must meet in the middle and make decisions together. Additionally, clients pay agencies to offer their professional opinion no matter what. Agencies like Mullen also work to manipulate and integrate new technology in ways that have never been done before. Advertising is a brilliant platform to unleash media choices that push the boundaries.

2. The people you work with make up where you work
Yesterday I said goodbye to the first set of people and honestly it truly made me quite sad to see them go. I’ve not only made some really great friends but have felt welcomed from the start. This agency is filled with some incredible people and ones I will miss dearly. I hope that my future includes a place of employment that made me feel just as special and includes people as wonderful as the ones I had the privilege to work with here.

3. Your experience is everything you put into it
Throughout the summer I’ve had some low moments but each one was easily eliminated by the many high ones. Every ounce of effort I put into this internship was returned back times a million. When you input nothing into your work, no matter how minimal the task, your results will be even smaller. My effort was backed with enthusiasm and later recognize by those around me. Once this recognition was made, not necessarily verbalized, other opportunities followed as a result.

4. Be afraid but don’t let fear stand in your way.
At the beginning of the summer I made it a mission to reach out to people throughout the agency for advice. I scheduled coffee talks with a few of them in hopes that I could learn more about what they do and their role at Mullen. Oh man was I scared to email them and then once I did I was practically shaking when I waited for them to meet me. I won’t deny that I was absolutely afraid to do many things this summer, but when I was able to achieve things beyond those scary moment I was most proud of myself. I couldn’t stop myself from being scared but I didn’t let it stand in my way either.

5. This is what I want to do
There are few moments in one’s life when they feel like they are in the right place at the right time. Lucky, this is definitely one of those moments. Never before have I felt more confident about the choices I’ve made and the places I’ve ended up. I look back to my time right before I accepted my internship and moved to Boston and think “I would have been foolish to turn this opportunity down.” This internship reassured me that advertising is the career for me and I will do everything I can to make this dream a reality after graduation.

What Would You Ask the CEO of Your Company?

Yesterday, the Mullen interns had the privilege of sitting down with Mullen CEO, Joe Grimaldi. Not many employees at any organization have the honor of sitting down with the person that runs their company, especially one the size of Mullen. After all of the small interactions I’ve had over the past 10 weeks with Mr. Grimaldi , I was pleasantly surprised to learn about Joe’s background and receive the brilliant advice he had for all of us. Here are some of the highlights I am proud to pass on.

Advice for Starting a Career in Advertising:
Demonstrate your passion for advertising. This is not an easy business to be a part of with long hours, and high amounts of stress. You have to want to do it. When you’re promoting yourself online and during interviews, display a point of view. This means have your own opinion about trends in the industry and things that you like or dislike. Share “what you will be at the company”. Explain to the recruiters what you will contribute to that company if you were hired. Have resilience and infectious enthusiasm. This job will knock you down over and over and your ability to get back up will determine how long you last in advertising. Show people that you are someone they want to work with.

Thoughts About the Future of Advertising
Advertising has always been a reflection of a culture as well as a vehicle to lead culture. The future of advertising will include new forms of “direct marketing” that use analytics to better understand the consumer and target them even more. We’ll see tv behaving more like digital and mobile will expand. It is important to have a broad knowledge of everything and to be curious of all of these things. Despite how many numbers we can crunch, don’t become slave to the numbers. Meaning, don’t let what the numbers tell you make you forget about the message you are trying to transcend. We are in the idea business, don’t forget that. Entertainment is a fundamental aspect of advertising.

Book Suggestions
“A book is like an ad, I start reading when I’m interested and I stop reading when I’m not”
So Joe is not much of a reader but suggested authors like Larry Weber (of Weber Shandwick) and Fred Goldberg. He also suggested reading anything that allows you to see inside an agency.

Favorite Campaign
Joe immediately said that his favorite campaign is the next one Mullen produces, knowing that is the answer he should say. He then gave an honest answer which included some of these great campaigns:

http://youtube.googleapis.com/v/nmwXdGm89Tk&source=uds

http://youtube.googleapis.com/v/myG8hq1Mk00&source=uds

http://youtube.googleapis.com/v/IJNR2EpS0jw&source=uds

http://youtube.googleapis.com/v/zRaQRbAxXaA&source=uds

He also mentioned he has enjoyed the work for Dove, Old Spice, and Volkswagen. Lastly, he included his praise for agencies like Wieden Kennedy and Droga 5.

Everything Is a Learning Experience

Joe’s background includes jobs as a musician, a shoe shiner, a motorcycle mechanic, a media planner and a account manager. Each job gave him a different learning experience that has contributed to who he is and the leader he is today.

Shoe Shiner: “The enthusiasm and effort you contribute to any job matters.” The only way you can get the next job that is better is to do the one you have now as well as you can.

Motorcycle Mechanic: “This was an opportunity for me to shape my own art and take things apart then solve the problem” With this Joe described how creativity comes in many forms and through working on motorcycles he found that he could be creative when it came to solving problems. His ability to take the bike apart and put it back together again convinced him that he could eventually do this in an entrepreneurial way with a company.

Tips for Leadership

It is important to “create a cause that people thing is worth working and putting effort into.” When people can come to work and know they believe in what they are doing they don’t mind spending long hours doing it. They will be happy to contribute the effort and they will volunteer their time because they have faith in its outcome.

Final Take-Aways:

Outwork others
Never forget integrity, human dignity, and respect for everyone
Learn to play the hand you are dealt
Aim high

Internship Week 9: Why Do Things End Just When They Start to Get Good?

Well, unfortunately my internship is nearing its end and just as things begin to pick up of course. The hard work and dedication to my work has definitely paid off in small ways. On Monday afternoon I was approached by my supervisor’s boss to help out on a new business pitched. Even though I was only asked to collect some data, my elementary school acquired Excel skills came in handy. With the data I collected I was able to build out a graph that was featured in the first slide of the presentation deck. It was really awesome to be a part of this experience, especially when I learned we made it to the final round of the pitch process! Overall this demonstrated that my boss not only trusted me but made me realize that I had proven myself worthy of that trust.

Summer Insight Series Take Aways:
So each week we have a “lunch and learn” event with someone from the agency and all the interns where we have the opportunity to learn more about the area of advertising, the people who work at Mullen and their experience of working in advertising and at Mullen.

This week the session was led by 3 members of the account services department that work on Jet Blue, JAMRS, and Google. As an account management intern I was very excited to see my department represented in the insight series. Many interns outside the account department ask me what I do and I believe that these three account people summed it up well. Describing it as “The People Department”. Account managers work as a liaison between the client and the agency. Great account managers must:

1. Be an effective communicator to both sides.

This means letting each side know what they need from one another. Whether it is translating client feedback or selling the creative concepts to the client. Their job is know how to best communicate the information base on the people that it’s being communicated to and what is being communicated. Like letting the creatives know that the client didn’t like any of their ideas and they need to start over is communicated differently than the client loved it and wants to put more money into the media buy.

2. Manage expectations

So much of what the account manager does involves managing the expectations for both those on the client side and the agency side. Sometimes when you’re presenting a piece of creative it is in the most basic form. Account managers must make sure the client understands how the creative will be vs when it’s presented.

3. Maintain the agency’s transparency

Account managers must be able to let the client know what is going on all the time. Between all of the client statuses are manage emails, calls and messages passed back and forth between the client and the account team. Account managers are always updating the client with what is going on all the time.

4. “Provide solutions, not problems”

When a problem arises it is almost always the account managers responsibility to fix it. Instead of dwelling on the problem or passing it on to someone else it is best to find solutions for the problem. If you can provide solutions to the problems you will be more of an asset to the account team.

Internship Week 8: Another Productive Week

Well week 8 probably tops the list at suckiest week here. Yes, suckiest is the adjective I chose.

I know it is silly to complain about getting paid to sit on Facebook, Twitter, Buzzfeed and Mashable all day but that is exactly what I’m going to do in this blog post so feel free to stop reading if you think it’s silly.

I would say I’m joined by about 50% of the interns in this frustration. Advertising is unfortunately one of those industries where work is some what unpredictable. Unlike the jobs of a teacher who comes in every and teaches from 8am-3pm or whatever and presents a lesson in forms of periods, writes lesson plans and grades papers. Advertising experiences busy points and dry spells. During dry spells interns are the first the feel the grunt. With little for full time employees to do it is even worse for interns.

So here I am at week 8 feeling ridiculously bored. I’m ashamed to be that intern that is seen never doing work. It’s getting very difficult to look busy for 8 hours every day. I hate to hold this against my internship experience here but honestly I’m getting tired of being an intern in general.

Summer Insight Series Take Aways:
So each week we have a “lunch and learn” event with someone from the agency and all the interns where we have the opportunity to learn more about the area of advertising, the people who work at Mullen and their experience of working in advertising and at Mullen.

This week the session was led by Tim Cawley, SVP Group Creative Director. As a copy writer he was able to discuss some awesome advice that speaks on both a creative level and advertising industry level. Despite his experience in the creative department there is so much I took away from this presentation. He offered up:

6 Truths According to Tim:
1. “Work for good people”
He basically expressed the importance of working for a great agency where you learn and do work that is great. No matter the salary, when you’re starting out you need to work under people that you understand and that understand you. Having a mentor at the early stages in your career also is vital.

2. “Anything can be great”
The example Tim mentioned was Cannes Grand Prix winner – Dumb Ways to Die. This was a campaign for railroad safety, created for Metro Trains. Sometimes it isn’t about doing work that is for the client with the biggest budget. It is about doing work that contribute to your agency’s portfolio. Each assignment must be treated like it’s the best thing you’ve ever worked on no matter what.

3. “Be Nice”
Clients tend to offer a lot of feedback and we forget that it is way harder to be the client. Be empathetic and a team player. Don’t point fingers because it take a team to produce good work. Advertising is a small business and you want others to want to work with you. Advertising is a “a business of opinions” and you want the one people have about you to be positive.

4. “You’ve got to sell your best work every time“
Nobody cares about your work more than you do. If you want to be known for your work, be on your work! You life is attached to the work you do. The money you earn, the car you drive, and the house you own all goes back to the work you produce. Don’t wait for others to make the changes or edits. Do them yourself.

5. “Use the ‘Uncle-in-law Theory'”
In advertising we often forget that we are selling products to average consumers, not other people who work in advertising. Go to places where these “cheesy idiots” go. Malls. Theme parks. Wherever. Keep working until your idea works for your consumer.

6. “There is no such thing as the perfect presenter”
There are many types of presenter. It is all about being able to defend your creative choice. Don’t BS. If you don’t know, say “I don’t know” or get the right person to come in a give the correct answer. Prepare to know as much as you can about your work. Talk from the heart about the choices you make.

Lastly, Tim reminded us:
– Advertising is “using art to trick the world into believing what a company wants them to believe.”
– We work as employees work for the advertising agency at the end of the day and they are the ones who sign out paychecks. We must produce good work for the agency as that will lead to good business, more clients, and awards which will lead to good business, more clients and more awards.

Wild card: A commercial from a campaign that Tim worked on that he used his awesome song writing skills for:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9q7_M5W0fE

Internship Week 7: It’s About Believing in What You Do

This week was an interesting week and by the end I was happy it was over. My supervisor was back and as predicted things went back to that way they were before. I returned to not only doing nothing but knowing nothing. I was kicked off everything I had been working on the previous week. I felt like I had proven myself beyond competent enough to handle the projects I was working on and when I was not longer even on the emails I perceived it as a symbol of mistrust. As a result, a goal I have set for this up coming week is to speak up and request that I be cc’d on all emails. It is important to my education and my experience that I get to learn my seeing as well as doing. Not including me on emails is preventing me from gaining the best learning experience possible.

3 Things I Learned This Week:

1. Importance in a companies corporate culture
This week some of the Mullen staff gave a great presentation about the “Mullenteers,” an opportunity to help set up community service and volunteer opportunities for Mullen staff. Even though the meeting was really for full-time employees I’m glad I went. As I prepare myself for job applications I am reminded it is super important to not only look for a company that offers an appropriate job for your but also offers a corporate culture that you believe in. It was really great to know that Mullen works hard to give back to the community as it is something I believe is very important.

2. Advertising agencies also work as consultant
Often it is miscommunicated that all advertising agencies do are pitches. They pitch to new clients or they pitch new campaigns to old clients. Like on tv, the client says “yes” or “no” to the pitch and then either the agency makes it happen or doesn’t and that’s it. This week I helped to put together a point of view (POV) for a client which included our recommendation for a decision regarding the use of some new technology. This was a different side of an agency I had never experienced before. In addition to pitching campaigns, an agency can also act like a consultant for their clients. Clients pay for great ideas and our expertise on all types of marketing.

3. Sometimes it’s about being the silent team player
As mentioned above, I helped work on a POV for our client. It was really a tasked distributed to our digital producer but when I noticed that she hadn’t done it even though it was due like 4 weeks ago, I went out on a limb and asked her if she wanted some help putting it together. She gracefully accepted my help and with her notes and my own knowledge I put together a draft of the POV and emailed it to her when I was done. The next morning the POV was sent back to my team with me cc’d on the email. Both my supervisor and her boss commented on how well it was put together and organized. I decided to open the file she sent back and noticed 97% of the content was what I wrote. In my mind I gave myself a pat on my back. Even though I did not get any credit for putting together the POV, I was happy to be a silent team player. In the end it isn’t really about who did it but rather that it was done well and helps the client. As an intern and soon to be entry level employee, I should get used to not getting credit for everything I do.

Summer Insight Series Take Aways:
So each week we have a “lunch and learn” event with someone from the agency and all the interns where we have the opportunity to learn more about the area of advertising, the people who work at Mullen and their experience of working in advertising and at Mullen.

This week’s session featured Ryan Houts, Senior Brand Strategist. He kindly gave a great presentation about the area of strategy and it’s role in advertising and at Mullen. Ryan walked us through a top secret example but it outlined how strategy works with the other departments and what they contribute to a project.

4 Take away from Ryan’s Session:
1. Strategist are dot connectors
Strategist take what the client wants, what the consumer wants, and current trends and connects them together to build a strategy that makes sense for everyone.

2. Planners have to care about everything
Planners can’t just be limited to print, broadcast or digital. Today, everything is so connect that a planner must thing on all platforms/media.

3. You can’t hold your ideas to close but you must stay true to your ideas
When a planner passes on their insight to creatives sometimes the creatives will look at the brief and completely go in a different direction. Planners must know when to lean back and let the creatives do what they want or remind the creatives to stay on brand/strategy.

4. A good account manager thinks like a planner
An account manager plays devil advocate in many situations. They fight for the client’s opinion with creatives and they fight for the creatives ideas with the client. Account managers that can think strategically can best know when to fight for which side. Also, there are times when a strategist is unable to write a creative brief. An account manager with the skills of a planner can make up for the lack of time and handle the creative brief themselves.

Book Review: Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg

“You are the promise for a more equal world. So my hope for everyone here is that after you walk across this stage, after you get your diploma, after you go out tonight and celebrate hard — you then will lean way in to your career.” — Sheryl Sandberg’s commencement address at Barnard College in 2011.

As a woman that is just about to enter an industry traditionally run by men, I was absolutely inspired by Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In. Her insight into the world of business, government, and technology told the story of how women must take the initiative to change their fate within their industry. As much as nature and society dictates how we behave, women must identify their short comings and make changes. Each chapter highlighted different issues that woman face from finding a mentor to balancing work and family. Her writing style was comforting as she wrote like she was having a conversation rather than dictating information at your. I enjoyed her short antidotes that introduced each concept really well. I did find that the book did have moments of repetition, and it could have been a chapter or two shorter. Additionally, I can see how some may argue that she makes women out to be weak employees that are victims to men or society. But then many of her thoughts were supported by facts and data that proved that women are set back.

http://youtube.googleapis.com/v/18uDutylDa4&source=uds

Sheryl Sandberg: Why we have too few women leaders TedTalk

I believe this book is great for young women who are entering the work force as well as those already in it. As I read the book it appealed to my ambitions to some day become a top executive and my desire to get married and have a family. It’s great to know that 1) I’m not the only person that worries about “having it all” and 2) that it’s not impossible to achieve what you want in life. Woman have made so much progress already to break through but we need more woman to be as strong and willing to take the risk. I am grateful for the progress that has been made and feel even more motivated to assist with this progress as I enter the workforce next year.

Finally, not only does she point out the issues that face women in the workplace but gracefully offers solutions for these short-comings. She provides person examples as well as psychological suggestions that offer ways to overcome these setbacks. The book includes how to negotiate, how to deal with criticism, how to be a better leader, and improve leadership skills.

Some of my favorite quotes:

“When I don’t feel confident, one tactic I’ve learned is that it sometimes helps to fake it.”

“It is hard to visualize someone as a leader if she is always waiting to be told what to do.”

“At a certain point it’s your ability to learn quickly and contribute quickly that matters.”

“There is no perfect fit when you’re looking for the next big thing to do. You have to take opportunities and make an opportunity fit for you, rather than the other way around. The ability to learn is the most important quality a leader can have.”

“When you want to change things, you can’t please everyone. If you do please everyone, you aren’t making enough progress.”

“On a ladder, most climbers are stuck staring at the butt of the person above.”

“The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.” — Alice Walker

“Asking for input is not a sign of weakness but often the first step to finding a path forward”

“The ability to listen is as important as the ability to speak.”

“Feedback is an opinion, grounded in observations and experiences, which allows us to know what impression we make on others.”

“Recognizing the role emotions play and being willing to discuss them makes us better managers, partners and peers.”

Internship Week 6: The Best Week Ever

It is really hard for me to put into words how I feel as this week comes to an end. For the last three years at Ithaca College studying advertising, marketing and public relations, I have always told myself advertising was right for me. I’ve excelled at projects that involved advertising and pursued positions involving advertising and advertising affiliated organization. But this week for the first time I felt in my heart that advertising was right for me. For the first time at a job I could deliver work and sign my name to it. I experienced the warm feeling of being proud of my contributions and new that what I had done not only fulfilled my duties but resulted in a positive outcome.

With my supervisor on vacation, it was just her boss and myself in charge of our account. I knew heading into the week that this was my time to step up and prove myself as a worthy participant. This would also be a time that my supervisor’s boss would need to take a chance on me. She couldn’t do both her job and my supervisors job and thus had to be willing to hand over some of the responsibilities to me. This week I was more involved than ever before from seeing projects through to managing creatives. My knowledge and skills played a key supporting role in getting tasks done this week and did not go unnoticed by my supervisors boss. It is an amazing feel to be trusted.

On Wednesday morning my supervisor’s boss also gracefully made it clear that she would like to do whatever she could to make sure I learn as much as I can about account management during my last few weeks at Mullen. This feeling of being taken under her wing was one that read on my face for the rest of Wednesday.

Overall, this week has changed my opinion of account management all together. Not only do I enjoy being the hub of knowledge for both the client and the agency, but I can actually see myself doing this as my career. This week has shed light on the creativity that exists in the world of account management, from selling a concept to the client or just knowing the brand well enough to assist creative decisions. I doesn’t hurt that even as an account management intern I got to tell full-time creatives what to do. mwahahah.

This week has just confirmed that for the last 3 years I was right thinking advertising was right for me. Now I feel that more than anything. I wish that everyone could feel this way about their prospective career.

Fingers crossed next week continues in this positive direction when my supervisor returns!

Today’s insight series highlighted the Digital department, one I’ve had the privilege of working a lot with already on projects for my account, Ernst and Young. They took us through the 5 subsections/steps of the department:

1. User Experience: UX is responsible for most of the strategy behind the digital execution. For example they may create personas that describe the audience that will visit a website and then design wireframes that designers will use to design the sight.

2. Digital Creative/Design: Digital designers/creatives with work on the art and copy for the website, mobile or online advertising (OLA). They work closely with UX to design around their wireframes and make sure what they design can be accomplished in development

3. Development: Development is responsible for actually coding and building out the digital piece.

4. Digital Production: Digital product work between the digital designers and development. Once the designers submit their designs and they’ve been approved by the client, product make sure that all the pieces are built out for development. They will use different programs to build out the files so they can either be built inside our digital department at Mullen or sent out to a third party vendor who is building the digital media.

5. Quality Assurance: QA is a pretty new department but their main job is to make sure everything is running properly and improve user experience. They participate in the digital creation process from the beginning and work to solve any problems that may arise throughout the digital development.

A big buzzword mentioned throughout the presentation was: Responsive.

The idea of responsive is that no longer will digital content need to fleshed out in different formats for every different device, instead online content will transform to each device it appears on. The content will reformat itself to whatever size it’s displayed on versus each device. It’s pretty cool stuff.

Not only did I learn more about digital content creation and its role here a Mullen, I found the presenters were incredibly friendly and enthusiastic about what they do here at Mullen. Afterword I had the privilege to talk to a few of them about how they got into the field of advertising and just life. The insight series is not only a great opportunity to learn about different departments within Mullen but also an excellent time to meet other people in the agency and make connections

Internship Week 5: Going Above and Beyond

When I used to work at The Children’s Place, a clothing store for babies and kids, customers would ask if we had a product in a specific size or any more that weren’t on display. Many times I would reply, “let me check” and I would proceed to our stock room, even if I knew that we definitely did not have any more. I would make it seem like I was going above and beyond for the customer. Often they would respond better to hearing “no” after I returned from the stock room rather than if I said it polite right after their inquiry.

Now working in advertising, I feel a parallel to how we deal with our client. In account services it is our duty to not only provide our clients what they want but also protect the expertise that they are paying for. I’ve witnessed over the past few days how well my account managers handle matching the expectations from both sides of the fence, client side and agency side. They have brilliantly shared extra steps they we are willing to take to demonstrate what lengths we will go to please the clients even it was as simple as sending an email to clarify something. I never realized how selling an idea can be almost an art and a science. It’s about knowing what makes the client understand and best knowing what the creatives were thinking.

I am definitely bummed that my supervisor will be on vacation next week but as a I’m on a very small account team, meaning there are only 2 people above me, I look forward to taking this opportunity to prove myself. As my supervisor’s will hopefully look to me for support, I plan to be on my game and ready to do anything that she may need me to do. Wish me luck!

Internship Week 4: Sometimes It Is About Doing the Less Glamorous Things

Advertising as an industry can often come off as a super glamorous job and at times it totally is. There are fancy events, award ceremonies and lots of free booze. You watch shows like Mad Men and can’t help to fall in love with all the scandal and creativity that advertising should be all about. We strive to be the Pete Cambells, Don Drappers and Peggy Olsons of the world, only the accept and internship or entry level position and quickly we are reminded that with the glamorous side of the industry come some not-so-glamorous tasks.

This is in NO WAY a blog post complaining about what I have to do but more of a chance to highlight what day-to-day tasks really do include for someone at the bottom of the food chain.

Waiting
Most of my days includes waiting for something to do. As an intern in account services the task I have the privilege to do are passed down from my supervisor. Unfortunately many of the tasks she does take way more time for her to explain than to just do herself. Also, one of the key tasks for an account executive includes just answering a ton of emails and keep in contact with the client and every department in the agency. This really isn’t something I can really do on behalf of my supervisor.

Attending Meetings and More Meetings
I actually really enjoy attending meetings because I usually get to interact with other people from other departments like media or creative. When you have numerous projects going on at the same time you may end up in many meetings and status calls and internal reviews and project kick-offs and… so it can feel a bit like it’s consuming most of your time. But this is your chance to figure out what is going on or to realize you didn’t know what was going on…

Excel is Your Best Friend
I often feel like I make Excel spreadsheets for everything. For the past 3 days I have worked hour after hour logging what will be almost 4,000 pictures owned by our client. This is supposed to help our creatives with their photo selection for campaigns, even though the client has a database already created…

Killing Trees
In addition to the many documents we have saved on a server I’m often given the task to print out some of these documents regularly to be organized in binders that live on my supervisor’s desk. These include invoices and billing documents dating back to when we got the account. The task is simple and requires only 10 minutes of my time, 20% of my brain and a bunch of poor trees.

So advertising isn’t always super cool and exciting, but I’ve learned that if I can leave the office with a smile everyday knowing that I like the people I work with and the outcome of these less glamorous tasks do help improve what we are doing as a whole, then I can survive this internship and even an entry-level position. I need to serve my time doing some less fantastic tasks. Unfortunately some of these less spectacular tasks never go away. That’s the reality of working in general. Not everything is going to gum drops and butterflies. But honestly because of that, you can appreciate the fun, glamorous things more.

Internship Week 3: It’s All About the People

Well today is the last day of week 3 at Mullen and I’m frightened by how fast this week went by but that’s what you get for having fun.

When I interview for jobs and internships I often ask, “What makes working at [name of company] a different experience from working anywhere else?” 9 times out of 10 my interviewer will include, “The people” in their answer. When you’re spending a minimum of 40 hours a week in an office there is no doubt that those you interact with will have a huge impact on your overall experience. This week I have continued to learn and love the people I have the honor to work with this summer. Between small talks on the elevator, or chit chat in line for coffee, I’ve been able to strike up conversation with pretty much anyone in the office. I also sit right next to the copier room which receives a lot of foot traffic. Every person that passes by me and makes eye contact with me always smiles at me. Even that subtle facial expression brightens my day. From day 1 the members of the Ernst & Young team have been incredibly friendly. Whenever they see me they say, “hi” and ask me how its going, and not in the way of just being polite, they actually sound interested. Even though there are about 400 people in this office I can honestly say I would be comfortable sparking conversation with any one of them. My interviewers here got it right, I feel like I’m working with the most friendly and talented people in the industry.

In addition, I have made really great friends with the interns. We are quite an interesting bunch, reining from all across the country. To be frank, I think that’s what makes getting to know everyone so exciting. We have so many different experiences to bring to the table and it never gets boring. Last year I never really felt like I fit in, especially with the interns. Most of them were from Austin or nearby so they weren’t interested in making friends because they already had ones they could hang out with after work. The fact that many of us picked up and moved to Boston for the summer gives us a common desire to make friends and explore a city we’ve never lived in before.

There have been quite a few slow days for the past 2 weeks but no matter what I always leave the office with a smile on my face because I confidently feel that I fit in at Mullen. The atmosphere and positivity is just inspiring.

Summer Insight Series Take Aways:
So each week we have a “lunch and learn” event with someone from the agency and all the interns where we have the opportunity to learn more about the area of advertising, the people who work at Mullen and their experience of working in advertising and at Mullen.

This week we had a session with Gina Preziosa, VP, Group Digital Media Director, about digital media planning/buying and trends. It was very interesting to not only talk about how digital media has evolved but how it has expanded dramatically since it’s launch in the early 1990s. Some high light’s from her presentation included:

1. Future trends:

Near field Communication (NFC): the ability to use your smartphone to transfer information, make purchases and ultimately interact with out-of-home ads.
Physical Technology: things like Google glass, that allows people to wear technology.
3D & Mixed reality: things like augmented reality that increase the user’s experience with 3D interations.

2. Modern media is about real time

It is not acceptable to just post a banner on a website and expect success. Brands must be relevant and provide content that fits within the context of what is surrounding their ad. In addition, when it comes to posting on social media networks brands must stay relevant. Best examples: Oreo and Tide during the Super Bowl.

3. Paid, Earned & Owned

With social media being a huge contributor to brands success and revenue they must key in on their paid, earned and owned media. Paid media is the media they purchase, like ad space/time. Owned media includes any assets the brand already has. So this could best be emphasized on free social media platforms. Lastly, earned media is any user generated media, or PR that a brand receives from their audience. Brands must do their best to contribute owned, use paid to increase exposure to gain earned media from users.

4. “Never take ‘no’ for an answer in advertising”

Advertising is so much about pushing the envelope and being innovative. Sometimes vendors and clients aren’t interested in taking as much risk as advertising agencies are. Even though they may so no at first, it doesn’t hurt to ask again… and again.