The thought of doing my internship in an advertising agency never crossed my mind. The reason was that I was more deeply interested in other aspects of the communication domain. However, I could not have been more surprised to realize that I actually loved it.
In March 2020 I had the enormous luck to have been accepted as an Intern at the creative advertising agency Droga5 in London. Days before my departure I could already feel the excitement to start working in such an environment. I was overwhelmed by the professionalism and the kindness of my next-to-be colleagues.
When I started my first day of work I felt at first nervous, but this emotion disappeared as I started having conversations with the nice people working there. I was efficiently explained the way of operating of the agency and my role and duties in the organization. Droga5 is an innovative creative agency, whose strategy is rooted in the current cultural movements and beliefs. My internship was not going to be boring and repetitive, the plan was for me to explore the sectors that characterize an advertising agency: account management, strategy, production, and creativity. I was introduced to important cases, from working with UK banks to internationally renowned fashion houses. Every day was a new opportunity to learn more, but unfortunately, not everything goes as expected. Already three weeks after starting this experience, the office was closing down due to the sars-cov-2 pandemic, and working remotely became the new reality. In a few days, also my University required me to urgently leave the UK, which was at the time still an “orange zone”. My expectations of continuing the internship were not as good, but I managed to continue until the end of my three months with some obvious changes included. In my room in Italy, I was attending online pieces of training on production, online courses focused on the bureaucratic and commercial aspects of the advertising industry, conducting my research, and performing tasks assigned by my supervisors and colleagues.
Regarding the research project, I was given the chance to choose my research question and the topics and I ended up carrying out a research project on the effects of the frame of belongingness on the intention to donate for an NGO. The inspiration was given to me by the several inputs on advertisements triggering the sense of belonging to an in-group and exhorting each one cooperation to fight the common problem of Covid-19. I decided to conduct a 2×2 online-experiment design, easily doable by the comfort of my home.
Overall it was an agreeable experience, I am still in touch with my lovely colleagues and look forward to collaborating with them again.
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