Lessons learned

This must be the summer for change. The account director decided to jump ship and head to another agency to man a technology account. One of the things I am learning about the ad biz is that to move up more times than not you have to move out.

Below is a quote I am going to make my mantra. It was a simple thought I had when responding to an email where the person wasn't certain I would have "fun" doing certain work.

Fun is not what I am looking for…it’s the experience I seek. If I enjoy the experience, the fun will come.
- Nerissa Marbury

As long as you give me credit, feel free to use it for I am quite proud of it myself.

Slow & Painful

The great part this week is that the team now has an Account Exec and an Assistanct Account Exec.

The bad part of this week has been lack of things to do. Why? Because there is now an AE & AAE on the account to do the things I was being given. So sad...less time and work for the intern.

Quiet Storm Before the Game

This week the entire account team was out of the office most of the week. The Group Account Director and Account Sup were in Los Angeles to shoot a TV commercial. The Management Rep was on vacation and the Account Exec and Asst. AE positions had not started work yet. So that left me...Account Leadership Intern to the rescue!

I mistakenly thought Week 6 would be rather slow since it was just me in the office. What I learned is that the momentum doesn't stop just because other people have. On Tuesday, there was a big client meeting. I learned the process of getting art work prepped, produced and packed to go. There were copies to be made and files to be sent. I emailed, called and picked up art work and made certain the Creative Director on the account approved the boards production put together in less than 90 minutes.

Wednesday before work I met with a VCU Brandcenter alumna who now works at Naked Communications here in NYC. I knew before arrival that I had one creative briefing to do in the afternoon. When I got to work there was already stuff waiting for me to do in my Outlook inbox. Help prep for not one, but TWO creative briefings. But guess what? We didn't know all the team members that were suppose to be briefed!! Once that little fire was put out, I met with the VP of Strategic Planning to talk about how we would conduct the meeting and make certain we were on the same page for what was needed. (Note: The VP was standing in while the account team was away). The VP was great to work with!


Thursday was busy even though it was a half day in the office. This was the day interns had 1st round reviews for the 2nd group intern project related to an upcoming cause marketing campaign. Once this was completed it was off to the ball park to watch the Mets play the Giants in Shea Stadium.

Friday? I used this day to meet with a few contacts at American Express and PhD. Simply put...I was networking.

Fireworks & BBQs Part 2

Speaking about social media, this was also a good week for me in other ways. You may or may not know, but my client has a social media page.

On this page there are several videos. The video topics are made relevant to current, new as well as never-evers and have been posted weekly. You know what that means....we need new topics to keep things fresh and relevant. As such, I participated in a brainstorming session for new video topics. This was during week 4. After the session, I took all of the ideas and expanded them to make them meatier and more descriptive. Next step was having our copywriter go over what was written and jazz it up before we met with the client for approval. Here's the good part...out of the 20+ video topics I wrote up at least 50% of what I wrote was kept as is. About another 20% the concept was kept, but the wording changed a bit and the remaining 30% was completely rewritten. Now to some that may not seem like a big deal, but to me when a creative director / copywriter keeps what you wrote word for word or keeps the overriding concept you wanted to communicate....that means they liked it. Yippee! This mean some of my ideas, words and thoughts will end up on a social media site. As they do, I'll be certain to provide a link so I can say..."hey, I worked on that!"

Til next time!

Fireworks & BBQs

I'm a little behind in posting especially since week 6 is almost finished. But what can I say? I got a little busy.

The goal of this week was to complete a deck on social media. For this deck, I researched the Internet high and low, read numerous blogs, flipped through articles and expensive research reports trying to discover the next social media trend.


My deck provides an overview of...

• Social Network Leaders
• User Attitudes & Behavior
• Trends & Opportunities
• The Competition
• The Client
• Case Studies

Although I found TONS of information did I find anything spectacular? A new hidden gem? Not really. Even still I was really excited about working on this project given its relevance to digital, interactive, social media, or whatever you want to call it. If you can't tell, Interactive is an area I've want to learn more about.

Well, once I get the okay perhaps, I will share the final deck with you. It will probably have some omissions to keep select information confidential, but the remaining information should be good nonetheless.

Laughter is the Best Medicine

Although this short film made me laugh, it also has a good underlining message. Love what you got, and work it for all its worth!

At the Movies

As you know, the start of the week commenced with the pitch presentations. Thinking about it...still don't know who "won" the pitch competition. Guess they will tell us eventually. To celebrate or by mere coincidence, we also had a movie night planned at Bryant Park. That night the feature was "Bride of Frankenstein". I went to it, but didn't stay for the actually movie since I already had plans that evening between me & some cocktails. Oops I mean friends! :-) For the two hours I was there (if you stayed for the movie you would have ended up being there for a minimum of 6hrs), I had a good time. This was the first time I was able to hang out with other interns who did not sit in intern row on the 26th floor with me. So it really nice to be able to get to know the gang a little better.

During week 4 our next group project was assigned. I have a new team that includes 2 account, 1 strategy, 2 creative, 1 finance and 1 music production person. The task is also a little "easier". We basically have to come up with creative ideas to promote an upcoming cause marketing campaign. First review is July 10th so wish my team the best!

Week 4 was suppose to be my week to pick up speed and work on making a footprint on my account. I provided a couple of ideas for the client's fall campaign and added my input during a brainstorming session for new video topics for social networking. If any of my ideas are incorporated, I will be certain to let you know! Unfortunately, week 4 ended kinda light since I was not able to work on Thursday due to the extra hours worked. Since I was told literally the night before, I didn't have time to make any plans to meet with people to use the time productively. What I did do was provide a status update to my contacts at LinkedIn.com. (I'll tell you more about this site in another post.) So perhaps it was productive after all.