Week 1, Interning at Ogilvy

DATE: 13/05/08 – 16/05/08 (May 15th-16th, 2008)

Work Responsibilities- what did you do this week?

On day 1 – I arrived at Ogilvy and received a tour of the facilities. It’s a pretty big place and has its own cafeteria and a bar downstairs! I was placed with my team in for Ogilvy’s Client BT (British Telecom, basically the British version of AT&T). I will be working with a lot of different teams but the BT email marketing team is kind of like my home base. I attended a couple meeting on BT Tradespace (an online community of small businesses) and got a little more familiar with it. I also traveled to the BT headquarters and sat in on a meeting there.

Day 2 – I worked with the BT team today and attended another status meeting. I am trying to pick up all the jargon that is being thrown around. There are a lot of terms I am unfamiliar with and I feel as though I am learning quite a bit all at once. I also sat in on an email consultation for the lynx (British version of Axe body wash) and Slim Fast brands. They were brainstorming different ideas of how to structure the campaign in the most engaging way possible. I learned that there are many different strategies regarding how and when you should contact the consumer.

I also learned the concept of dynamic content in emails. Dynamic content is basically taking a bunch of different preferences of the consumer and putting that data into use by filtering it through a system that tailors the email to that recipient’s personal preferences. This is important because the email needs to be relevant to the opener and somewhat compelling to get them to engage in the email and click through and hopefully convert down at the end of the road, that is the customer journey.

Day 3 – Today, I sent out a bunch of emails to the different heads of the main departments. I scheduled a couple meetings with them to get a better grasp of how things work around here. Still waiting to hear back from most of them, people seem to be very busy on their day to day rounds.

Day 4 – Today, I met with Rhian Woods, who is the leading data analyst for the BT team. She told me a lot about her career path and how she has been at it for 11 years. Her job is to compile all the different data points that BT receives on their customers and analyze how to best reach the target audience of BT. She is in a consultant roll so she does this for a number of different clients. Before meeting with her, I had no idea how large of a roll that data analytics played in the advertising and marketing world. It is of the utmost importance, especially in the digital space, that you are capture data at every touch point possible and use it to build a profile of individual consumers based off their I.P. address, cookies, and/or login information.

Later in the day I met with a guy named Jethro Ferguson. He is in charge of the interactive team for AmEx (American Express). I expressed my interest in the interactive side of the agency and he told me if there were any upcoming projects his team was working on that he would clue me in on. He also explained in more detail in what exactly the interactive team was doing for AmEx. They are working on a couple micro site launches and also have an iphone application that they have been developing. Jethro has an interesting job because he is in charge of the global interactive account. Working on a global account means that he has to tailor a generic micro site into 23 or so slightly different sites, depending on which market he is dealing with and the culture differences of that market. He told me that doing this can be very tedious not only to tailor to each market but also because the global AmEx team consists of about 430 people.

What is your immediate reaction to your new work environment?

The offices at Ogilvy are pretty cool and modern looking. At first glance I was super excited to have the opportunity to work there. They have an on site cafeteria and a pub downstairs!

How have you adjusted?

The first couple of days it was hard to get into the groove of things and finding projects to work on. There are over 800 people who work there and that was a little overwhelming to me when the last agency I worked at (The Zimmerman Agency) was at about 115people.

Did you face any unexpected challenges during this first week?

Being overwhelmed with the big agency made me a little shy to meet new people. I was under the impression

Were there any pleasant surprises?

Yes actually the team I work with is filled with a lot of really nice cool people. I met most of them on Friday at the downstairs pub.

If you encountered any initial uncertainties or confusion, how did or will you handle them?

Yes! Moving into a big agency was an eye opening experience. With over 800 people in one office is was a bit challenging meeting new people and getting there names right. I also did not have much work to do on the first days because they had to find a project that I could work on. This upcoming week I already have a project to get started on and I should have more on the way.

What have you learned this first week?

The main thing I have learned is not to be shy and try and jump into anything I can get my hands on.

Go to Week Two

Popularity: 21% [?]

Enjoy this post? Subscribe to my RSS feed.