With the success of fast-casual restaurants on the rise, fast-food chains have to find new ways to attract customers as they’re losing market share to their fast-casual competitors. Many restaurants are trying to appeal to the popular consumer segment of Millenials, who seem to value overall experience and atmosphere very highly when it comes to dining out.
Fast-food chains, including KFC, Arby’s, and Taco Bell, have started redesigning their restaurants, inside and out, to appeal to consumers. According to Ad Week, a lot of these chains, Arby’s especially, have seen aging customer bases. Redesigning the physical stores, many of which are outdated, is a way for these chains to increase customer satisfaction in their existing customers, while creating interest in consumers who might not be customers yet.
One view of Dickey’s Barbecue Pit’s new restaurant layout. Photo credit: Franchise Times
“The fast-casual restaurant industry is a market that is still in its growth phase, meaning that there is a lot of room within the market,” TAI Digital Media student Nicholas McCall said. “For the fast food industry, the barriers to entry are almost non-existent due to their already existing supply change. A small change in the food and atmosphere of a fast food restaurant would not be tough to make happen; however, rebranding a company’s [established] brand into a healthy, fast-casual option would be slow to materialize.”
These new and improved store designs have typically followed updates to the stores’ menus, keeping up with changing consumer tastes. The overall idea is for fast-food chains to be able to compete with rising fast-casual restaurants, urging customers to spend more time in the store by providing a better atmosphere and better food options.
“Consumers are busier than ever as well as more focused on their health,” TAI Digital Media student Paige Brown said. “Fast-casual restaurants offer the best options available that provide both of these increasingly influential factors at a reasonable price.”
Another view of Dickey’s new restaurant layout. Photo credit: Franchise Times
This semester, TAI’s second year Digital Media Strategy students are working with a class client, Dickey’s Barbecue, in the fast-casual industry in their Digital Media Strategy 3 course. Last year, Dickey’s introduced their newly designed store into the market, with a completely new tone and vibe. Now our students are working to help Dickey’s find innovative ways to bring new consumer segments into their store, mostly through digital efforts.
As we’ve seen, newly designed stores and up-to-date menus are a must-have to be competitive in the market. With fast-casual restaurants continuing to improve, will fast-food chains be able to keep up? Even a newly designed fast-food restaurant might not be enough to beat out the modern feel of a fast-casual restaurant. The stigma surrounding fast food might be hard to overcome for these chains.
In her last two years at SMU, TAI student Mae Murrell has interned with three different advertising agencies. Through these experiences she has learned the ins and outs of what agency life is like, including culture, work pace, and the responsibilities of different positions.
Currently, Murrell is working at Johnson & Sekin as their account service intern. She is the only intern at the agency right now, so she has gotten to experience working with many different departments.
“When other departments need a helping hand, I’m there to help!” Murrell said. “So far, I’ve created two months’ worth of social calendars for three clients, scheduled and posted posts to all social media platforms, helped in the development of new brand positioning, creating recap decks for the client that include their analytics data, and pitched ideas for client newsletters. Recently, I’ve been dipping my toes in web development and coding.”
Working at a smaller agency, she has gotten to experience the unique culture that comes along with it.
“So far, I have loved the energy of Johnson & Sekin!” Murrell said. “Working in a small agency is so different than a large agency because you get to know everyone on a much deeper level. There may be less people but there certainly is more personality! Everyone in the office is more than just colleagues, they’re friends. From Halloween pranks to happy hours to ‘mystery jelly bean games,’ Johnson & Sekin employees know how to have fun at work.”
All of her internships have helped Murrell realize what facet of advertising she wants to start a career in once she graduates, which is account service.
“Account service did not fall directly into my lap,” Murrell said. “It took some digging to determine that this is what I wanted to do with my life. I started my internship journey in non-profit, moved to project management, and then did media and account service internships simultaneously at Moroch. There I learned that account service was the right place for me. This internship in account service has solidified that I’m on the right career path!”
The slide in Moroch’s Dallas office.
This past summer, Murrell worked at Moroch Partners here in Dallas. At Moroch she worked as both an account service intern and a media intern, working on clients like Dickies, Wilsonart, McDonald’s and Six Flags.
“At Moroch, I gained a ton of experience about account service,” Murrell said. “I was thrown straight in to working directly with clients and interacting with them regularly. This was the internship that truly taught me the art of how to work in account service. It does not just take organization skills. It’s a mix of every job: creative, technical, analytical and strategic. It’s necessary to have excellent communication and organization but also understand everyone’s role in the agency so that the campaign process can be carried out effectively and efficiently.”
While Moroch helped her discover her passion for account service, Murrell also had an incredible experience interning with Spill Agency in Paris, France. At Spill, she was a project management intern working with clients like Hermes, Chanel, and Memo Paris.
“[Spill] is an agency for luxury brand clients and focused more on the digital side of advertising. I learned how to get work, get it done efficiently, and make myself useful so that my supervisor’s jobs were made easier. In addition, I did the social media for Hermès, which was really fun! I helped with the new website launch of Chanel and Memo which was a lot of work but extremely rewarding.”
Working in a foreign country, Murrell had to adjust to the differences not only of living in a completely different country but also in the workplace. As the only American working at the agency, she easily noticed that the work environment was very different than that of an American agency.
Murrell in front of the Eiffel Tower in Paris.
“One of the [biggest] differences was the pace of the agency in France,” Murrell said. “In America, the norm is to be consumed by work and be busy all the time. In France, they are leisurely about their work and put socializing first. I would go in to the office at 10am and be the first one there! That said, some days I would leave at 9pm and my colleagues would still be working away. The hours are, for the most part, shorter and end once they leave the office. There is no working at home or out of the office. Work stays at work.”
While her time in Paris was an irreplaceable experience for Murrell, it was unforgettable in more than one way. Completing her internship during the fall of 2015, Murrell found herself in Paris during the time of devastating terrorist attacks. Although she could have chosen to leave Paris after the attacks, Murrell stayed feeling it was her duty to help during the city’s time of need.
“Being in Paris during the attacks was a terrifying experience,” Murrell said. “Not just in the sense that I was scared for my safety but also in the sense that I was seeing the destruction of terrorism right before my eyes. After the attacks, people were like ghosts that wandered the streets of Paris. Each person’s eyes filled with sorrow, sadness, and most of all emptiness. Paris was no longer upbeat and exploding with love; the people lulled through the streets. Everyone had a broken heart: from the crying strangers on the streets to my coworkers mourning their friends, everyone was hurting. There were ‘what ifs’ running through everyone’s minds, and thoughts of how easily it could have been us. From it all, there were bonds that were being created among the people of Paris. Everyone was mourning and came together as a strong, united city.”
Although not every moment of her time abroad was as she had imagined, Murrell still regards her internship in Paris as her favorite thus far.
“Getting to work in Paris was a dream come true! I have always wanted to spend some time in Paris, and getting some advertising experience under my belt at the same time was the icing on the cake. Who knows, maybe I could end up there again someday!”
Sarah Erickson lecturing about brush lettering techniques in Professor Mendenhall’s Typography course.
Thursday, November 3, TAI Creative Advertising and Graphic Design Professor Cheryl Mendenhall had a guest speaker lecture in her Typography course. The speaker was TAI Alum Sarah Erickson (’15), who is a designer for Doodle Dog Creative and owner of and designer for Sarah Ann Design. Erickson specializes in Calligraphy and lectured the students about the ins and outs of Calligraphy in regards to Typography.
Professor Mendenhall’s students were fascinated by Erickson’s lecture, and it is always exciting for professors to have former students come back, especially to lecture on their career and area of expertise.
“Sarah has amazing lettering skills!” Professor Mendenhall said. “It was great to have her back on campus and show us how she’s using these skills in her work and to teach us a few lettering techniques.”
Sample of work by Erickson for Sarah Ann Design. Photo Credit: Sarah Ann Design
TAI professors love to have guest speakers lecture in their classes to provide students with a different perspective from someone currently in the industry.
This summer, TAI Digital Media Strategy student Joshua Oh participated in the Multicultural Advertising Internship Program (MAIP). Through this professional development program, a select number of students are chosen every year to participate in summer-long internships across the country, as well as workshops and seminars.
Oh (far right) with a group of MAIP participants.
“MAIP, in my point of view, is a really great opportunity for multicultural students to enter into the advertising world,” Oh said. “It also gives participants access to advertising internships that are really only accessible to those with direct connections. MAIP is also a great way to meet other people from other campuses around the world and build relationship with them.”
Over the summer, Oh worked at Hill Holiday, an advertising agency in Boston. The Hill Holiday internship was structured around a “pitch project” that all the interns in every department would participate in.
“Each of the interns were assigned to different parts of the agency,” Oh said. “For example, I was assigned to media planning and other interns were in production, new business, account planning, and other positions. For the pitch project, which was the highlight of the internship program, all 33 of the interns were split into four teams and two ‘clients.’ The two teams on each client were awarded a prize. So each intern had the work that was assigned to them by their supervisors, as well as the work for the pitch project.”
Oh (far right) with all the interns from Hill Holiday.
Although he worked in the media planning department, Oh also got to shadow video producers, something that he is interested in for the future.
“My favorite moment from my internship was when I got to talk to the producers and videographers at my agency,” Oh said. “Even though they assigned me to media planning, I had the opportunity to shadow some of the producers and ask questions during my downtime. It helped give me a better focus of what I wanted to pursue postgrad.”
During his internship, he worked with some pretty big clients and did a lot of hands-on work.
“I was part of the Dunkin’ Donuts team,” Oh said. “I pulled reports, helped budget the months, analyzed invoices, and other media planning duties. I also assisted the Supercuts team with Google AdWords.”
Outside of his internship, Oh also attended workshops and completed assignments that helped him get a better idea of the advertising world.
“MAIP planned small workshops for us, the MAIP interns, that were located in various ad agencies around Boston where we listened to speakers, asked questions, ate food they provided, and participated in activities,” Oh said. “We were also given a coding assignment on Khan Academy that was due by the end of the internship.”
The biggest workshop MAIP interns attend is a seminar in New York at the end of the summer. MAIP interns from all over the country come together for this seminar.
“My favorite memory from the program was the entire week I was in New York,” Oh said. “At the end of the internship, every MAIP participant gets flown to New York and not only do we get to attend seminars and career fairs, but we get a lot of free time to explore the city. New York City is now probably one of my favorite cities after Dallas.”
Throughout the program and internship, Oh learned a lot of valuable lessons that he can use well on into the future.
“I learned that almost everything in life can be negotiated,” Oh said. “Whenever I needed help or needed a fast break, all I had to do was ask. At first I was so surprised about how willing people were to help me out even though we’d never met before. I also learned where to focus my efforts to pursue the career path that I want to pursue and not put time elsewhere.”
Overall, Oh speaks very highly of MAIP and values his time in the program, as its benefits will carry on far after the program’s end.
“Although the internship had its ups and downs, emphasized by the fact that MAIP was in a transition period, the entire program was so beneficial,” Oh said. “I had so much fun, learned a lot about the advertising world, and gained so much global insight. The entire program also became worth it after I attended the MAIP Career Fair in New York. I saw how desperate the agency representatives were to hire people and how interested they were about our experiences.”
Some of the many homeless signs collected by Professor Baronet
TAI Creative Advertising Professor Willie Baronet has been purchasing and collecting homeless signs from people across the country since 1993. Over the last twenty-three years he has collected over 1,000 signs. For years, Professor Baronet has displayed these homeless signs in exhibits all across the country in his art project “WE ARE ALL HOMELESS.” This past April, his project was turned into a documentary following Professor Baronet’s 31-day cross-country trip buying homeless signs in 24 cities.
The documentary, “Signs of Humanity,” was released in April, and has since been accepted into several film festivals across the country, including the 2016 Dallas International Film Festival and the Chain Film Festival. The film will be playing at the UNAFF 2016 International Documentary Film Festival in San Francisco on Thursday, October 27, and the Unspoken Human Rights Film Festival in Utica, New York on Friday, October 28.
One of the interviews from “Signs of Humanity”
Although Professor Baronet has been collecting signs for over twenty years, this was the first time he had done something so concentrated.
“[The documentary] was the first time I did such in depth interviews with folks on the street,” Professor Baronet said. “And the media attention from the trip helped to make it clear how many people struggle with what to do when they see someone with a sign, and often have mixed feelings about what to do. I began to realize this project helped some people voice those concerns and have conversations they might not otherwise have.”
“Signs of Humanity” has given Professor Baronet an amazing platform to voice the issue of homelessness and find a way to help. In making the film, Professor Baronet and the other filmmakers partnered with many organizations that help homeless people.
“Help USA sponsored the exhibit in New York at the end of the documentary,” Professor Baronet said. “They also sponsored exhibits at both political conventions this summer in Cleveland and Philly. Maria Cuomo Cole, the chairman of Help USA, is also an activist and filmmaker and has been a big supporter of this project. The Bridge has also been a big supporter, and I also spoke at their annual fundraiser in 2015. They helped sponsor events around our premiere at the Dallas International Film Festival as well. I’ve also partnered with Stewpot and the Housing Crisis Center on projects in the past. All of these organizations are doing great work for the homeless.”
Although Professor Baronet didn’t document many of his early encounters purchasing homeless signs, he remembers quite a few people that have stuck out to him over the years.
Michael from Omaha and Professor Baronet taking a selfie
“There was a woman who sold me a sign that her late husband had made,” Professor Baronet said. “There was a man in Austin who wanted to talk about art and his relationship with his father. Michael in Omaha was a veteran missing one leg, who I had a powerful connection to. Cheryl in Detroit is the only person so happy that I was buying her sign that she reached in the car and hugged my neck. Elli in Baltimore was only 17; she was Romanian and spoke five languages, so full of promise and doing what she could to take care of her family.”
One person in particular Professor Baronet has kept in contact with is a man named Eddie who he met in Philadelphia.
“Eddie had a sign that said ‘What if God occasionally visits Earth disguised as a homeless person panhandling to see how charitable we are. Completely hypothetical of course.’” Professor Baronet said. “Eddie and I have become friends, and I’ve reconnected with him twice in Philly. He is a former heroin addict, and now is working and sponsoring others in AA. He and I spoke together on a panel at the opening of a ‘WE ARE ALL HOMELESS’ exhibit at the University of Pennsylvania in September of 2016.”
One of the women featured in “Signs of Humanity”
Over his years of collecting homeless signs, Professor Baronet has gained a new perspective on the meaning of “home.”
“I’ve gotten a deeper understanding about what ‘home’ means, to me and to others,” Professor Baronet said. “I’ve learned that we all share many of the pains and privileges of the human experience. Holding a sign on the street is simply asking for help, something I’ve had to do many times in the course of my life. And I’m lucky to have friends and family as a safety net when I need something.”
Professor Baronet hopes his documentary can take away some of the preconceived notions surrounding the homeless.
“It can be easy to put people in boxes based on judgments we may make,” Professor Baronet said. “Even waving and smiling and seeing the humanity in each other can change the dynamic between the housed and those on the streets.”
Last week, both undergraduate and graduate students from TAI participated in multiple networking events making connections with companies across DFW.
Tuesday evening, TAI graduate students went to Ad2Dallas’ Speed Career Connections event. The event had professionals from numerous agencies, including The Company of Others, Inspire Agency, The Richards Group, ReedMitchell, SocialCentiv, TM Advertising and Resolution Media. The Creative Circle also helped attendants by reviewing resumes and providing career guidance.
Attendants at the Ad2Dallas Networking Event Photo credit: Ad2Dallas
“I really enjoyed the Ad2Dallas event because it was a fun and casual way to meet working industry professionals,” TAI graduate student Lauren Lombardo said. “They offered some very insightful advice about entering the advertising job market, and it was interesting to hear different perspectives within the industry. It also helped me work on my social skills, and I feel confident now walking up to people and starting a conversation. The Creative Circle even had a resume reviewing station where they offered critiques, which was quite helpful. Overall, it was a great opportunity to network with potential mentors or employers, and I had a wonderful time.”
Thursday afternoon, TAI undergraduate and graduate students attended a Communications Networking Event, jointly hosted by the SMU Hegi Family Career Development Center, TAI, the SMU Chapters of PRSSA and AAF (Ad Club). The event included employers such as Brunswick Group, D Magazine, Omni Hotels & Resorts, Southwest Airlines, The Infinite Agency, TracyLocke Advertising Agency, Weber Shandwick, and more. This event offered students the opportunity to meet industry professionals and make valuable connections for the future.
“The SMU Communications Networking Event was a great experience for me and my fellow peers,” TAI undergraduate student Monica Gonzalez Glenn said. “We got the opportunity to meet some amazing employers from a variety of fields and industries here in Dallas. The employers were very excited to meet us and enthusiastically responded to every question we had. Based on my post-event experience, recruiters have been extremely open to shadowing requests, internship interviews, and willingness to network more.”
A similar career and networking event will take place in the spring on Wednesday, March 1 from 3-5pm in the Hughes-Trigg ballroom. The Temerlin Advertising Institute loves to partner with local Dallas and SMU organizations to provide opportunities for our students to make connections and further their advertising careers.
Friday October 21, Temerlin Advertising Institute hosted a lecture by Visiting Scholar Dr. Kevin Wise, an advertising professor at the University of Illinois. Dr. Wise discussed his research, “Effects of Movement on Cognitive and Emotional Responses to Stimuli Viewed on Mobile Phones.” His research explores the psychology underlying interactive media use, suggesting that from a cognitive perspective physical cues may activate psychological concepts that, in turn, influence psychological responses to stimuli. Many SMU staff and students attended the lecture.
Dr. Wise lecturing at SMU.
“Mobile devices are ubiquitously prevalent in today’s world,” Adeline Tolliver, Instructional Designer for SMU’s CTE, said. “We see students and faculty around campus walking or standing while hypnotized by their mobile devices and dwelling in the digital as much as in the physical. Dr. Wise’s work on the evaluation of emotional responses by stimuli in mobile devices, while participants were in motion or still, sheds a light on the potential impact of movement to the cognitive and emotional responses to stimuli and inform scholars in the field of advertisement as well as other fields. His session was very informative, and I was able to identify many relevant findings that could have significant impact in my field of teaching and learning.”
At the University of Illinois, Dr. Wise teaches Advertising Research Methods, and he received his PhD from Stanford University. He is the Chair of the Information Systems Division of ICA, and serves on the editorial review boards of Media Psychology and the Journal of Interactive Advertising.
Temerlin Advertising Institute was honored to host Dr. Wise for a lecture on his research. TAI is passionate about staying informed on all current topics in the advertising industry, hosting guest speakers periodically throughout the year.
Dallas, and surrounding suburbs, is full of headquarters for many large national companies. Many of these companies offer a variety of internships in many different fields. Southwest Airlines is one of those companies, headquartered just fifteen minutes away from SMU’s campus. This fall semester TAI Strategic Brand Management student Camryn La Sala has taken the semester off to intern for Southwest Airlines. La Sala is midway through her internship, and has loved every minute of it.
La Sala on her trip to Chicago for WOW! The Customer Day.
La Sala applied for multiple fall internship positions with Southwest Airlines last spring. She was contacted in late April to do a phone interview, and had a final in-person interview in mid-July.
“At the time [of my phone interview] I was taking classes at SMU’s campus in Taos, New Mexico so finding cell service was a bit interesting to say the least, but I made it work!” La Sala said. “After not hearing back from Southwest for weeks, I assumed they found someone else to fill the internship position. Then come mid-July they asked if I was able to come to Headquarters and do an in-person interview. I spent my summer back home in New York, so they graciously flew me down the night before my interview and put me up in a hotel room at the Double Tree not too far from Dallas Love Field Airport and Headquarters. About two weeks after my in-person interview I heard back from the Southwest Airlines hiring team and was offered the position!”
As the Brand Communication Intern, La Sala is part of the greater Brand Management team. Although her responsibilities change on a regular basis, her overall job is the make her supervisor and team’s projects easier by providing them any assistance they may need.
“Every day as a Brand Communications Intern at Southwest Airlines is different,” La Sala said. “No matter what, I know that I will walk into the office every day to a welcoming team that strives to make sure that I have the best internship experience possible. This is my fourth internship, and I definitely could not say that about all my past experiences.”
La Sala has especially enjoyed the culture at Southwest Airlines, where she feels like part of the team and not just an intern.
“Every employee at Southwest Airlines is treated like an equal, including interns,” La Sala said. “When I was working at the Chicago Airport for WOW! The Customer Day last month, my team consisted of two full time employees as well as the Senior Director of Marketing, whom made a point to ask me my name and have a conversation with me. It is important to be nice to everyone because at Southwest Airlines you really never know if you’re talking to an entry level employee or the VP of marketing.”
So far, La Sala’s favorite memory was being flown to Chicago for Southwest’s “WOW! The Customer Day,” part of Southwest’s YES Activation. She was part of a team that gave away prizes to customers, including Rapid Reward vouchers, drink coupons, gift cards from Starbucks, McDonald’s, and Dunkin’ Donuts.
“For the whole day we interacted with Southwest Airlines customers by playing gate games,” La Sala said. “At one point we had a rock, paper, scissors tournament with eight different people! It was just a really awesome feeling handing out free gifts to our customers just because we love them. Southwest Airline’s culture is one of the most important parts about their company and it was nice to go out into the field and show that to people first hand. It was also very cool meeting the CEO of Southwest Airlines, Gary Kelly, when walking through the MDW airport later in the day!”
As Southwest Airlines is a major company, La Sala has found herself working on advertising campaigns that she had previously learned about in her advertising classes at SMU.
“It is super rewarding learning about certain things in a classroom and then coming to work at one of the best companies in the world to see it all play out,” La Sala said. “This internship has taught me to think on my feet. You always need to have your notepad ready, to prepare for the next task. You always want to be prepared. I bring my notebook with me to every meeting!”
Although she is only part of the way through her internship, La Sala is already advocating for Southwest, encouraging other students to apply.
“Interning at Southwest Airlines is worth the hype,” La Sala said. “I could not have asked for a more amazing company to work for. If any other SMU students are thinking about applying to intern or work at Southwest Airlines, do it! It will be a great experience, no matter what the outcome is!”
In the upcoming weeks, TAI Professor Eunjin (Anna) Kim will be hosting multiple guest speakers in her Digital Media Strategy 1 class. She is inviting any interested students to come sit in her class on the day of these speakers as well.
James Moore, Chief Revenue Officer at Simpli.fi
The first guest speaker is James Moore, Chief Revenue Officer at Simpli.fi, specializing in Programmatic Advertising & DSP (Demand-Side Platform). On Tuesday, October 18, Moore will speak about Programmatic Advertising. He will address the evolution of online marketing and how data driven RTB (Real Time Bidding) has changed the way media is bought and sold; common tactics and real life applications for programmatic display, mobile, video, and social; how the target works: Geo-Fencing, Site RT, Search RT, category and keyword contextual; and what’s next in programmatic.
Paul Buckley, President of D Custom
The second guest speaker will be Paul Buckley, President of D Custom, a Content Marketing Subsidiary of D Magazine. On Tuesday October 25, Buckley will speak about Content Marketing. He will be talking about content marketing strategy, trends, challenges and opportunities for digital marketers, and what’s next in content marketing.
The third guest speaker is Mike Wylie, Managing Director Dallas at Wpromote, specializing in Paid Search and SEO (Search Engine Optimization). On Thursday, October 27, Wylie will speak about Search Marketing.
The last guest speaker is Brad B. McCormick, Chief Digital Officer at Moroch, a Dallas-based top 10 independent ad agency. On Tuesday, November 8, McCormick will speak about Social and Mobile Media Marketing.
Detailed topics for the last two speakers will be distributed soon.
While these lectures will occur in Professor Kim’s Digital Media Strategy 1 class, all interested students are welcome to attend any of the lectures. All lectures will be at 12:30pm in ULEE 234.
Being an advertising student in Dallas, one tends to hear about local agencies a lot. Luckily Dallas is full of great agencies, many of which offer intern positions that provide valuable real world experience. This summer, TAI Creative student Tanner Thompson had the opportunity to work as an Art Director Intern at The Richards Group.
As with most jobs, Thompson applied online, sent in his resume and portfolio, had a phone interview, and finally an in-person interview, where he was offered the job. But Thompson soon learned that this position was not like any other job.
Thompson and a group of interns.
“What’s so fun about being in advertising is that there isn’t a ‘typical day on the job,’” Thompson said. “Every day you get to do something different. I know that’s a cop out though, so I will say that a lot of my time was spent concepting ideas for campaigns, ads, layouts, website content, and the like, as well as doing tons of art direction and layouts for a bunch of different brands.”
Thompson worked on many different brands throughout his internship, including Chick Fil A, The Home Depot, Eyeglass World/Oakley, KeyBank, The Main Event, MD Anderson Cancer Center, Schwab Advisor Services, AAA and Shamrock Farms. But his main clients were TXU Energy and South University.
“My favorite client to work on was Chick Fil A,” Thompson said. “The ‘Eat Mor Chikin’ cows have social media pages, and my copywriter and I came up with all the stuff the cows posted for the month of August, which was a ton of fun. I also go to do some in-house work for the agency. I designed the Snapchat Geofiler for the entire agency, which was a blast.”
As much fun as Thompson’s client work was, his favorite memory involved a task given to Thompson and six other interns finding a creative way to remind fellow employees to get their food out of the fridge on Fridays. They came up with a concept of someone in a giant sandwich costume, called “The Stanwhich” walking around the agency to remind everyone to get their food.
Thompson and other interns walking around with “The Stanwich.”
“We needed to get Stan’s permission to not only let us have a giant sandwich walk around the office every Friday which, as you could imagine, may be a bit distracting, but we also had to get his permission to use his likeness with the name ‘The Stanwich.’” Thompson said. “This meant we [had] to present our idea to Stan. No intern groups had ever presented creative work directly to Stan before, and as honored as we all were, we were also pretty nervous. The full-timers that were helping us with the project were super pumped that we would get to present to Stan, but also warned us that he may kill one or two aspects of the idea. We went into the presentation fully expecting to come out with a few bumps and bruises, but instead he ended up loving our entire idea and we got the ‘go ahead.’ The moment right after Stan walked out of the room, we all stood there for a second, silent, and then just exploded with happiness. Nobody could believe that we had just gotten the Stan Richards to let us have a sandwich walk around the office on a weekly basis. Everybody was jumping around, high-fiving and just laughing like crazy. The stress of the presentation was gone, and it couldn’t have gone better!”
Through all of these incredible opportunities, Thompson learned valuable lessons about The Richards Group, advertising, and working as an intern.
“I learned more than I could possibly [share], but I’ll try and hit the highlights,” Thompson said. “Unless someone asks, you’re not an intern. Say yes to everything. Nobody wants you to fail, so don’t. Outdoor billboards should never have more than eight words on them. ‘Make the logo bigger.’ Don’t overuse the intern excuse, but don’t underuse it either. Presentations are only scary if you’re unprepared. People are always late to meetings; that doesn’t mean you can be too. Stan Richards is the man. Make friends with everyone. Don’t forget your key card; everyone likes to laugh at the intern stuck in the stairwell.”
Thompson with another group of interns.
As Thompson’s internship provided him with many valuable takeaways, the most important thing he learned was about his future.
“[This internship] showed me that I’m on the right path,” Thompson said. “I had a blast going to work everyday this summer. In part because of the people, as well as the work.”
