10.23.2014

AdPR Internship Profile: Caroline Laszcz works at Ogilvy

Advertising major Caroline Laszcz

Caroline Laszcz worked as an Account Management Intern at advertising agency, Ogilvy & Mather throughout the summer. She is a senior studying advertising. 

Describe the process of applying and receiving the Ogilvy summer internship. What was your official title?

I began my internship search in December of last year, which I realize now was probably a little early, as most agencies had not yet begun accepting internship applications. Ogilvy, however, was one of the few agencies that had already opened up their application, so this

was the first one I applied to, and therefore, the first one I heard back from. I also spoke to the Ogilvy recruiters at AdPR Connection in November of last year, which definitely sparked my interest in the company. In February, I was called in for an interview, which was actually three separate interviews, all back to back: two interviews were with two separate teams, and the third was with my boss. A few weeks after the interviews, I was asked to do a phone interview with my boss. Although this was the final interview in the process, it was the most casual of all of them and the one in which I felt the most at ease. I had a feeling this interview went really well, and about a week later I received a call with an internship offer. Since it was still fairly early in the internship application process, I still hadn’t even completed most of my applications to other agencies (and many agencies I was looking at still hadn’t opened their applications). I knew that working for Ogilvy was a rare opportunity, though, so I accepted right away. All of the interviews were within the account management field, as this is the area I am interested in, and my official title was Account Management intern.


What drew you to this internship specifically?
Ogilvy & Mather was the first ad agency I ever heard of back when I first became interested in advertising. There are tons of agencies out there that I would love to work for, but I’ve always heard great things about Ogilvy and I knew it was a very prestigious agency. David Ogilvy is often considered a “father” of advertising, so I knew that working for this company, even if for a brief period of time, would be a great honor and would impress future employers.

What were you hoping to gain from the internship? What will you bring back to Grady
College?
The main thing I was looking to gain from this internship was simply exposure. I’ve learned all about account management and various other positions in my classes, but it’s difficult to tell if you’ll really be happy in a certain field unless you actually spend some time working in that field. Actually working at an agency for the first time was a great and very hands-on way to determine what type of position I want to end up in. I’m excited to be able to share my experience with my classmates in Grady and let them know what account management is like. A lot of students don’t know what side of advertising they would like to work in, so I am looking forward to be able to tell other students about my internship and help them determine if the type of work I did at Ogilvy is something theywould like to do as well.

Which skills learned within the AdPR Department of Grady College helped you to earn the internship?
Throughout the internship process, I received a lot of tips and encouragement from my advisor, and I don’t think I would have landed the internship without the confidence boost she gave me. I am also lucky to have all of the knowledge on the various positions within an agency that I learned during Intro to Advertising. All of the teachers I’ve had in Grady so far seem to know a lot about the field and about what it’s like to actually work at an agency, which was really helpful when deciding where to apply and what positions to apply for. I am also extremely grateful for AdPR Connection, because that is where I first came into contact with the Ogilvy recruiters, which eventually lead to my internship offer.

Describe your day-to-day responsibilities at Ogilvy.
Every day, I searched the web for news and updates on my client’s industry. One of my responsibilities was to draft a weekly report to send out to my team detailing all that was new in the industry at the time. I also communicated with the client on a daily basis to create revision orders on the pieces we were working on at the time. I would then relay any changes the client wanted to make to the creative team. Working in account management requires a lot of timeliness, attention to detail, and communication skills, and this internship definitely helped me hone those skills.

What are your post-graduation plans? Long-term career dreams?
As of right now, I don’t have any post-graduation plans, but I would really like to take a year off to travel the world before I enter the workforce. After that, I definitely plan on applying to a variety of agencies. I am really interested in social media and plan on looking into that more in the future.

Do you have any advice for other AdPR students looking for experience?
My advice to other students looking for internships or full time positions would be to never give up, never expect anything to go the way you planned, and never let yourself become discouraged because of lack of experience or because you don’t think you measure up to the competition. I almost didn’t even apply to Ogilvy. I was intimidated by the extensive application and kept telling myself that I was wasting my time because I was way less qualified than other applicants. Why I had this thought in my head, I don’t know; but being offered the position clearly proved all my pre-conceived notions wrong.

10.20.2014

Ad Camp 2014 for HS students at Georgia Journalism Academy

High-school students interested in advertising were included for the second year as part of the annual Georgia Journalism Academy at the University of Georgia.

From June 8-14, Grady College hosted high school students from across the country for the 30th annual Georgia Journalism Academy. The project-oriented academy is a week-long, residential summer camp for high school journalists, themed "The Grady Games."


The Advertising camp was taught by Grady doctoral student Adam Avant. His class focused on the basics of advertising, how agencies are organized, and the roles in an ad agency. Students also learned the concepts of branding, target audiences, and media considerations among other topics. Throughout the classes, students developed activities such as an advertising campaign, and attended seminars in public relations, web design, newspaper design and staff leadership.


Advertising students Alicia Bush, Haley Kellner, Hannah Rollins, Makayla Richards and Miriam Edelkind-Vealey also completed an advertising campaign for a product of their choosing. The campaign included questionnaires, creative briefs, print/online/television advertisements and a complete presentation to the rest of the Camp. Check out the Zilopop campaign.

Learn more about advertising students involved in the Grady Games.

From left: Advertising students
Miriam Edelkind-Vealey, Haley Kellner,
Makayla Richards and Hannah Rollins 
The students of the 2014 Georgia
Journalism Academy

10.15.2014

AdPR Internship Profile: Chelsea Harvey works at Kimberly Clark

Chelsea Harvey, ABJ 2015
Chelsea Harvey was a Marketing Communications Intern for the Pain Management Department at Kimberly Clark during summer 2014. She is a fourth year studying advertising and minoring in history.


Describe the process of applying for and ultimately receiving the Kimberly Clark internship. What was your official title?
I first heard about the Kimberly Clark Health Care co-op opportunity when my brother participated in the program as a biomedical engineering student at Georgia Tech in 2010. Basically, KCHC offers 10-week to 6-month internship and co-op rotations to college students majoring in engineering, marketing, or business. After hearing him praise the program and seeing how it promoted his career development (he is now an Industrial Engineer for Abbott Vascular in Menlo Park, CA), I kept Kimberly Clark in mind when I began looking for internships as a college junior in 2014. I applied for an internship in April of 2014 and interviewed with the Marketing team a few weeks later. Because Kimberly Clark Health Care typically seeks students of engineering schools, and because my team had not taken on an intern in a few years, the on-boarding process was fairly informal; they met me, liked my resumé, and asked me to start in June.


As Marketing Communications Intern for the Pain Management Department, I worked as part of the Marketing department and specifically within the Pain Management platform, on the Coolief* Cooled RF device. Other platforms within Kimberly Clark Health Care include Respiratory Health, Digestive Health, Surgical Solutions, and Protection & Infection Prevention.


What drew you to this internship specifically?
Honestly, it was the personal connection of having seen family members work with Kimberly Clark. My brother participated in the co-op program in 2010 and 2011 and my aunt is Director of National Accounts within Kimberly Clark Health Care. Kimberly Clark is different from most corporations in that they promote something called "work-life balance": the company wants employees to feel comfortable, healthy, and happy enough to do the best work they can. As an employee, you determine your hours and dress code, allowing a flexibility that creates exceptional results. I trusted that an internship at Kimberly Clark would be educational, but also that the company itself would be a good personal fit. I was right!


What are you hoping to gain from the internship? What will you bring back to Grady College? Favorite part/lesson from the internship?
I went into my internship partially expecting to be a fly on the wall who also delivered coffee, but by the end of the experience, I learned so much that I felt I couldn't have learned from a classroom. During my ten weeks at KCHC, I learned the social dynamics of conference calls and meetings, the necessity of time management when given flexibility, and the diplomacy required when balancing multiple projects on various teams. I've already noticed that I'm better able to manage time and facilitate group work now that I'm back at Grady College. There's something about spending your summer being involved in projects that have real-world results, that affect real patients and doctors, that instills a sense of urgency and the realization of a deeper meaning from your job. I have noticed that it really allowed me to engage in my work, and to bring that sense of engagement back with me. Everything we're learning at Grady College is preparing us to enter the workplace, be that as part of an agency or working client-side, and to change the lives of those who use our products.


My favorite part of the internship: the people. The Marketing team was constantly looking for opportunities to teach me about the medical device industry and about the workings of the corporation, but they were also incredibly open and honest about wanting to learn from me. They valued my opinion and my input as a (Grady) college student, as a millennial, and often allowed me to work on and initiate projects. Because of their trust in me, I was able to devise and implement a Twitter hashtag campaign at a trade show during the last few weeks of my internship. My team had never implemented a conference hashtag campaign, so it was really exciting to be given that trust and that freedom to both offer the idea and implement it, with the help of their digital marketing team and my mentor.


I would also say that the corporate culture at Kimberly Clark was phenomenal. The campus was beautiful, with LEED certified buildings overlooking a lake employees were encouraged to walk around for exercise and happiness. There was a constant sense at Kimberly Clark that, in order to do your best work, you have to be happy and feel valued.


Which skills learned at Grady College helped you to earn the internship?
I would not have been able to be as successful in my role at Kimberly Clark had it not been for my education at the Grady College. I cannot emphasize that enough. Specifically, Dr. Ahn's Advertising and Society course taught me how to consider the multi-faceted issues surrounding marketing to certain demographics, which helped with determining the copy that I wrote for some of our promotional campaigns. Further, I learned from Dr. Griffith's Message Strategy class that your best pieces of copy come only after exhausting all possible options, which helped a lot when working with my mentor. We would often come up with a concept, approach our team members, discover that there was a better or different way to word things based on meeting legal requirements and new information concerning a patient or the device itself, and have to rework the concept many more times. I think most importantly, though, Grady College gave me the confidence to step into a workplace and feel comfortable asking questions, making suggestions, and offering sources to back those suggestions up.


Describe your day-to-day responsibilities at Kimberly Clark.
I was able to dip my toes into many different projects while I was at KC, which was incredible. As the MarComm intern for Pain Management, I tracked our success on our patient-facing website for our Coolief* Cooled Radiofrequency device. Using WebTrends, I maintained and compared metrics for the site. Because the Coolief* Cooled RF direct-to-patient campaign had launched in Chicago that April, most of my efforts were directed toward web metrics and measuring success of that campaign. I also maintained contact information for customers of smaller buys for our Needles, Kits, and Trays and Standard Radiofrequency device. I worked under my mentor, Marketing Communications Manager Pam Katz, and often assisted her with generating copy for promotional emails, future campaigns, etc.


What are your post-graduation plans? Long-term career dreams?
I'm trying to keep my post-graduation plans loose, because I've found that the best opportunities often come into fruition when you're least expecting them. I know that I would like to be a copywriter at a small to medium-sized agency or manage communications for a non-profit. But maybe I'll write children's books, or be a television critic, or work on a farm. I'm not sure! I want to somehow make my way to Chicago, IL, but other than that, the future's wide open for me.

10.13.2014

Professor Sallot honored for top educator award

Much congratulations to Dr. Lynne Sallot, professor in the Department of Advertising and Public Relations, for being honored for the 2014 "Milestones in Mentoring" award by the Plank Center. Dr. Sallot has taught at UGA since 1993. She has been honored with several department, university, and national teaching awards for her excellent work in the classroom. "Dr. Sallot is has influenced thousands of students as a leading public relations professor," said Tom Reichert, head of UGA's AdPR department. "I can't think of anyone who has been recognized for her work in the classroom more than Dr. Sallot. She is very special."

Dr. Sallot will be honored October 30, 2014, in Chicago. She'll be introduced by Neil Hirsch, a former student of Dr. Sallot, current PRSA-Georgia president, and AdPR Executive Council member.

10.11.2014

Two AdPR students chosen as 2014 Grady CURO assistants

Advertising major Chelsea Harvey
Advertising students Chelsea Harvey and Sapna Mistry have been chosen for Grady College’s Center for Undergraduate Research Opportunities assistantships.

Part of an initiative to enhance the UGA learning environment, the CURO Research Assistantship Program began this year and provides a $1,000 stipend to 250 outstanding undergraduate students across campus to actively participate in faculty-mentored research. Each college/school will award a number of CURO Research Assistantships, Grady College has 12 assistantships to offer this academic year, and students should direct questions about eligibility & criteria to their Dean's office.


Advertising major Sapna Mistry
Chelsea Harvey, ABJ 2015, will be analyzing advertisements within early fan magazines to better understand early fan communities and how advertisers integrated into these communities. Her research mentor is Dr. Jay Hamilton.

Sapna Mistry, ABJ 2015, will be looking at industry trade journals to understand consumer co-creation of ads and brands as a long-standing promotional process. Her research mentor is also with Dr. Hamilton.  

10.08.2014

Four AdPR students intern at Moxie as part of new learning alliance

Four AdPR students interned at Moxie during summer 2014 as part of a new learning alliance with UGA's Department of Advertising and Public Relations. Two internships are guaranteed for AdPR students but four were selected for this very competitive opportunity.

The students included: (pictured left to right: Nikita Desai (not pictured), Jamie Herndon, Ellie Reed and Rachel Smudde. All students were graduating seniors except Smudde -- she is a second-year MA student. The students interned in different departments. Smudde interned with the analytics group.

The internships began in May and ended in August. The paid internships gave students real-world experience at one of the leading agencies in the southeast. The department is very pleased to partner with Moxie to graduate tomorrow's digital leaders.

10.06.2014

AdPR hosts AEF speakers Hillary Traylor and Janis Middleton

National Ad(PR) Week got off to a great start with special AEF visitors Hillary Traylor and Janis Middleton visiting classes Tuesday, September 30. Both work in social media at 22-squared based in Atlanta.

Traylor and Middleton spoke about both the art and science involved in today's advertising. They shared their message in a large intro class as well as a graduate management course. They also consulted with students about student class projects based on social media. After a day of guest lecturing, Traylor and Middleton met with students during dinner before addressing UGA's Ad Club.

Traylor is an AdPR/UGA alum as well as a social media director at 22-squared. Middleton is a social media manager at 22-squared. She has a journalism degree from Clark Atlantic University.


10.01.2014

50 @ 5: Grady program takes 50 students to Cannes Lions in year five

In summer 2014, 50 UGA students spent three weeks in southern France attending the Cannes Lions Festival as part of a unique study abroad program. It is the fifth consecutive year students attended Cannes Lions as part of the UGA program. The study abroad has expanded rapidly since the first group of 14 students attended in 2010.
Students meet Richard Edelman

Speaker highlights and sightings included Bono, David Hasselhoff, Rob Lowe, Courtney Love, and Sir Patrick Stewart among many others. Themes included empowering women in the profession—Facebook’s Susan Sandberg was there, content marketing, and research about Millennials. Students visited the Google Sandbox, and attended interactive Tech Talks, Forums, Workshops, and Master Classes. Over 60 seminars featuring the world’s most influential marketers and media executives from Facebook, Twitter, Proctor & Gamble, Heineken, BBDO, and Saatchi and Saatchi, among many others.

Exclusive Guest Speakers
This year’s special guests included an exclusive set of professionals who shared their insights directly with the students. They included:

  • Gale Anne Hurd, Executive Producer, Walking Dead
  • Armando Iannucci, Series Creator, Veep
  • Suzy Deering, CEO, Moxie
  • Brian Wong, CEO, Kiip
  • Fred Cook and Ellen Ryan Mardiks, Golin

Students in the program mixed and mingled with leaders in the brand, media and agency business. Several students were offered internships or positions while attending the festival.

Highlights
Similar to previous years, highlights included yacht parties, scuba excursions, and day trips to Nice, Antibes, Eze and Monaco. Two students groups won “Canned” lions for their class-centered campaigns for forthcoming Netflix Original Series developed during the program.
Hanging with Pinterest's Ben Silbermann

Health Lions
Special this year, students attended the first ever Health Lions held two days before Cannes Lions. Students met David Nutter, Game of Thrones director. They also heard about the promise new life-saving innovations and practices in healthcare marketing. And they were moved by amazing work employed by India’s Lifebuoy (Unilever) team.

UGA Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Studies Dr. Jeff Springston participated in this year’s program. He taught a special about health communication and previewed Health Lions for the students.

Cannes Lions Study Abroad Program
Students earn six hours of upper-level academic credit from the University of Georgia. Although most of this year’s 50 students attend UGA, the program is open to students from any accredited university.
"Game of Thrones" director David Nutter

The program is co-directed by Drs. Tom Reichert and Nate Kohn, professors in UGA’s Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication. Students interested in next year’s program are encouraged to visit the website for information about deadlines and the application process (or contact Kelly Meyer: kellym22@uga.edu for program details).