Coming to work in an advertising agency I was excited to learn anything that would come my way. I knew I had some skills that would help me perform well – writing concisely and compellingly, being a good public speaker, and contributing my opinions to a conversation with ease. However, I was not aware of the thing that would help me the most during my time at 180 Amsterdam and that thing was being chronically online.
Urban Dictionary defines a person who is chronically online as someone who is always on the internet and their entire existence revolves around doing so. It goes to the length of saying that chronically online people typically have no friends in real life and stay online starting useless debates. I would not go as far as UD with that definition, yet some things check out. I do spend a lot of time on the internet and I love understanding the underbelly of each new media debate. I listen to podcasts about media and pop culture and watch YouTube analyses. Yes, I am chronically online.
And I was always fine with that. I am that friend who will contribute to a conversation with a random internet quote that no one will get and I will be happy to explain why X and Z are feuding on Instagram. Yet, I never thought my internet knowledge was something that would help me in my career.
But somehow 180 showed me that my – undeniably big internet knowledge – is an asset that makes me stand out of the crowd and makes me a promising strategist.
I spent my time working at 180 Amsterdam as a strategist. My tasks included creating monthly and weekly reports for the watch and beauty markets. I had to look into emerging trends, competition, and opportunities to create content that would stand out. Already while completing these tasks I quickly realized that my internet-savvy brain helps me with creating my work faster. My main task when it came to researching the beauty world was finding niche beauty brands that could show us emerging trends. I quickly got a name – the “niche girl”, as my supervisors liked the content and brands I managed to find.
Another task during my time at 180 was researching potential customers and trying to connect them to the brands we worked with. During one project I managed to connect an upcoming trend – let’s call it “pints, chats, laughs, good people” (https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/pints-chit-chat-and-good-people) and managed to pitch it as an idea to get to the client’s customer base. Again, my managers liked the idea and it ended up emerging on the client presentation.
It also helped me with working on bi-monthly reports called “Culture Flash” where we dissected a bigger trend – such as Nostalgia or Girl Internet – and showed what opportunities it brings for all the brands we worked with. Especially with this task, I felt like I could put all my internet knowledge forward. Looking back at my time at 180 working on the Culture Flash Girl Internet edition has to be my favourite task out of all I have worked on.
My time at 180 Amsterdam taught me that if you are passionate about something you will be able to connect it to your job. Even the things you would never consider a “job asset”. For me, that was being chronically online! So if you like something, believe in your passion and maybe, just maybe you can make a job (or a big portion of it) out of it!
