I spent the past five months of my life as an all-round marketing intern at TBWA\X, the full-service international advertising agency. I find it hard to find words describing the entire experience. It was overwhelming, exciting, stressful, challenging and mind-blowing – all at the same time. it was truly a rollercoaster of emotions and days full of learning. This introduction might be confusing, but continue reading and I will guide you through my experiences.
The searching
The thought of getting an internship was terrifying me. I believed that an international student with no work experience and zero professional connections would not stand a chance of landing a “dream job”. I only knew one thing – I wanted to enter the creative industry and I would do anything to make that happen.
I made the list of agencies I wanted to work at and sent emails to every single one of them asking for the internship. This resulted in getting quite a few interviews and the final job proposals. In the end I made my decision to intern at the agency – TBWA\X, which works with big brands and focuses on customer experience and specialises in making websites, apps and games.
The beginning
On my first day, I remember entering the huge glass building and being excited about the future. I had a lot of thoughts going on in my head and I was observing every little thing. I was getting ready to take care of my primary responsibilities which were creating the social plan, making social media posts every week and keeping the website updated with blogs and ongoing projects.
Few weeks in
After a few weeks, I felt that the daily routine became repetitive and this terrified me. I started asking my colleagues, and not only the supervisor, to get me involved in their projects. This would usually lead to me getting an insane amount of workload however I believe this is what kept my internship exciting. I had the opportunity to work with data analysts, product owners, the CEO, while also working with graphic designers and coming up with creative ideas.
During Covid-19
After having the pleasure of living my office life, my days were quickly changed into working from home lifestyle. This definitely brought some challenges for me. Learning new things, being involved in projects and building professional relationships were needed to be done in new ways. Every morning would start with the call and the value of communications was truly brought to the next level.
I was lucky enough to work with a newly gained client and to be involved in every step of the planning and production. My research was also designed for this client. The research process enabled me to work with performance marketers, the client itself and to learn a lot about A/B testing, optimisation and personalisation in general.
Takeaway
My experience showed me what I should be seeking in the future. I have to say it brought me more confusion than clarity about my interests. I realised that dealing with social media is not for me, and I have learnt that the creative side of marketing is the right direction for me. Thanks to this internship I got interested in graphic design and plan to learn more about visual communications. I would tell any future intern to keep asking questions and to stay productive because at the end of the day we are the ones that shape our own internship experience – you can make the most of it if you want to, just stay curious and focus on exploring the field.