Katie is a first year BA (Hons) Advertising student, who won a week’s work experience at Bright Blue Day as part of a creative CV competition. Here’s her blog diary to show you how she made the most of her time.

Once Bright Blue Day announced that they would be giving the advertising students a guest lecture, they informed us of a competition. We had to make a creative CV and the best three won one week’s worth of work experience with the company. During the guest lecture they announced the winners!

As part of my work experience we were asked to write a reflective blog. This seemed daunting at first but we managed to get into the swing of things!

Monday

On arrival we were introduced to the client services team and had an introductory meeting with Annie who explained the activity pack which we had been given. They had outlined tasks for us to complete individually, some involving creative skills and others exercising our writing and blogging skills.

We set up the room which the focus group, for a client called Pittards, was to be held that evening. On the subject of Pittards, we were asked to create a Pinterest board following a theme, one being garden gloves and the other regarding the great outdoors. Pinterest boards are a great way to create a visual mind map and emphasise a theme running alongside a collection of products or a brand.

I completed two tasks, the first being award-winning campaigns. After choosing three campaigns that focused on different media platforms, I explored the brand and its campaign.

Tuesday

Tuesday morning we had a feedback meeting with Annie, our mentor. We discussed tasks that had been worked on during the previous day and extra work for the client services team that we could choose to complete. Emma and I volunteered to create a client brief as part of a recruitment day the firm is having in the future. It was difficult to create a brief instead of interpret one. We had to research the format and information needed to ensure we created a useful brief. Due to the fact that it was for a recruitment day we wanted to challenge them.

During the day I completed an exploration of three different brand campaigns and critically evaluated them. This gave me the opportunity to understand elements that make a successful campaign and to appreciate how brands use different media platforms to portray their overall message. Additionally, I completed a task that involved the nature of a business and what they sell but I had to think of the name of the company and create a logo.

I found that receiving feedback as I completed the tasks gave me insight into what the agency expects and certain aspects to include in my evaluation. Through the feedback I could develop my evaluation skills.

Towards the end of the day I created a blog, the difficulty was settling on a topic! I have a particular interest in social media therefore I thought that sponsorship in social media would be an appropriate aspect to focus on. I evaluated this topic by underlining the strengths and weaknesses and using examples to support my content.

Wednesday

I moved on to a different task that explored more of the creative side. We had to choose an existing brand and reinvent their logo. I had to explain why I chose those elements and why I thought it would be effective. I first explored different brands and assessed their logos, comprehending whether they reflected the brand image and purpose. I found that cosmetics brands did not capture the brand well therefore I wanted to focus my task in this area. I refreshed the L’Oreal logo and I found that I could explore the target audience in order to create something that would successfully reflect their brand.

During the latter part of the day we attended a meeting about the research preparation needed in order to understand what Mind, a charity company, can improve upon. I found it extremely interesting to see how Bright Blue Day organise themselves to ensure they can give their clients advice on their business. We were given the task to research Mind in terms of the brand competitors, the brand’s digital efforts and the charity shop market in general.

Thursday

While my fellow colleague was out of the office conducting research, I thought it would be beneficial to create several audience personas that captured the different types of audience Mind should be targeting. I found this exercise useful as it gave me the opportunity to understand who Mind are selling to and I could assess whether they were targeting them effectively. I also decided to research into the competitors of Mind to highlight the methods they use to advertise and compare them.

For the latter part of the day I had the opportunity to conduct research about charity shops in general. We visited around ten charity shops of different brands to gain insight to the way they collect their money, how the stores were laid out to entice customers and the charity information available. It was interesting to see how the charities differed and how some focussed on different aspects from others. By getting out of the office and experiencing it for ourselves we gained a deeper understanding of the marketplace and the elements involved.

Friday

On the last day of work experience we finished off the tasks and took on board all the feedback that had been given to us by Annie.

My time at Bright Blue Day has given me the opportunity to understand the internal workings of an agency. I think that by organising the task pack for us, Annie made sure we could make the most of our time. I feel that I have improved my writing skills, learnt so much about the extent of research that goes into each client and what the agency expects from certain tasks.

I’d like to thank Annie for looking after us, Mati for being a great help and the rest of the team for making us feel welcome! It was a great opportunity to learn and develop; I’d highly recommend work experience to help with making those important choices about your future career.

By Katie Dennis