Halfway-mark recap...

After almost week off to help with the national gymnastics event I've been involved with (it was exhausting but went wonderfully), I am back in action at BG and ready to brighten the day with a fresh blog post. I was asked by my internship coordinator at school to submit a short account of my internship experience thus far for our department website. It is a nice little summary of what I've been up to for the first half of my internship here so I have included it as today's blog post:

Life at Bailey Gardiner is an adventure, every single day. Located in beautiful downtown San Diego, I attend client meetings at the office, I ride a beach cruiser bike all over the city to deliver things to clients, get to tour local print shops, and contribute to the intern blog. I’ve placed third in the office bowling trip, put together cheese platters for a freelancer open house, I’ve tested client websites and watched a dancing gorilla in a tutu serenade one of the ad execs at his desk. As the only resident BG ad intern for the summer, I am here 9 to 5 every day of the week and have already gained an incredible amount of experience in more areas than I could have imagined.

There are parts of this business that have been exactly what I learned at Ball State- brainstorming, creative briefs, mock ups, design, production- all the small pieces are what I expected to see. What has awed me the most is the way these pieces are put together at Bailey Gardiner; learning the processes, attention to detail and communication required for every project and every client interaction is something you could never learn in a class and has been extremely valuable.

Most importantly, my internship at Bailey Gardiner is showing me how exciting a career in advertising at a great company can be. Collecting a group of enthusiastic, creative and talented individuals makes for a wonderful adventure each day and is something I am grateful to be a part of here.

World Cup + Pepsi...

I love any kind of global sports competition- whether it’s a World Championship, an Olympics or a World Cup- because I love watching countries support their best athletes in hopes they will prove themselves the best in the world. I love seeing the enthusiasm and the pride these kinds of events bring to each country and, of course, the way advertising is used in these enormous events.

For this World Cup, I have been paying particular attention to Pepsi, even though the official World Cup sponsor is Coke. Pepsi has been weaseling their way into the World Cup with their “Oh Africa” video online and on TV. The video has received more views and attention than Coke’s videos since it went viral in March. It is a two-and-a-half minute high-budget video featuring soccer superstars (Messi, Lampard, Henry, and Drogba) playing soccer in Africa and is considered a World Cup video even though it does not directly associate itself with the competition.

I appreciate any effective and creative ambush marketing techniques, especially for an event like the World Cup, and Pepsi’s newest ambush technique is one of my favorites: Argentina’s famous and controversial former soccer star and current coach Diego Maradona said if Argentina were to win the World Cup, he would run through the streets of Buenos Aires naked. Pepsi has capitalized on this quote from Maradona by taking out print ads in Argentina featuring a Pepsi bottle with no label and only a tag around the neck with “If the coach goes naked, we will, too. Pepsi promises.” Pepsi is promising that if Argentina wins and Maradona makes good on his naked victory lap promise, they will distribute Pepsi bottles in Argentina for one week with no label.

I’m blown away at the speed of Pepsi’s response and their innovative way to further connect themselves to the World Cup without being an actual sponsor. No matter how many times Coca-Cola is printed in association with this year’s World Cup, it will be Pepsi who is remembered for the creative way they capitalized on a soccer legend and the global World Cup fever. At this point, I think Pepsi has already won even if Argentina does not come out victorious. But if Argentina does win, Pepsi will have cleverly and very cost-effectively associated its brand with what is sure to be a joyous and monumental moment for Argentina. Brilliant.

My first dose of real-world PR...

I was reading a great article on Adweek called “Your Culture Is Your Brand” by the CEO of Zappos about their company’s culture and hiring process, and (although they’re not the main focus of the article) a few key sentences really stuck out to me:

“With the Internet connecting everyone, companies are becoming more transparent whether they like it or not. An unhappy customer or a disgruntled employee can blog about a bad experience with a company, and the story can spread like wildfire. The good news is that the reverse is true as well. A great experience with a company can be read by millions of people almost instantaneously… The fundamental problem: you can't anticipate every possible touch point that could influence the perception of your brand.”

These words are absolutely true for an agency but even more applicable to companies who aren’t professionally trained in advertising or public relations. When I’m not at BG, I’ve been helping with some marketing and design work for the 2010 YMCA National Gymnastics Championships that is being held in San Diego. It’s an enormous event (over 2,500 attendants) and the Y has created and maintains a Facebook page for the event. A company with no real advertising or PR knowledge can undoubtedly manage an event without assistance, but the Facebook page has seen a surprising number of problems. It has made me realize just how vital attention to PR is for any company and the amount of effort it takes for anyone who puts company information on the internet to interact with their customers in a positive way.

Oops #1: The Opening Ceremonies of the event are being held at Sea World- Shamu Stadium in particular. As soon as plans were finalized and the announcement could be made, it was done via Facebook with the message “Who’s excited to see Shamu??!” Unfortunately, this was done less than a week after the Florida Sea World trainer was killed and got a response from a little girl that said “Well I was excited… until Shamu killed that lady.”
Lessons learned:
-Paying attention to timing is everything. Knowing when to announce information for the best possible response is a skill that requires experience and constant attention.
-It also requires being up to date with everything involving your company or brand and making sure that is prominent in your mind when connecting with customers, particularly online. It can be so easy to post things online that it’s sometimes done without a tremendous amount of thought, but for a company, every post or comment should be analyzed and double-checked to prevent a costly mistake with customers.

Oops #2: One team entered to compete had to be disqualified from the meet for not technically being a YMCA. The team was informed of their disqualification on Friday before Memorial Day Weekend and the event Facebook page immediately exploded with spiteful, angry and hateful responses from their team and parents. By Tuesday morning, the entire page was filled with threats, protests, and negativity that had gone unsupervised and unregulated for days, which was really damaging for the event.
Lessons learned:
-Whenever something negative happens, try to anticipate how and where this will influence your brand. Being on top of things when something negative is on the horizon could prevent a lot of trouble, time, and money for a company.

Helping with this competition while being at BG has been incredibly valuable for me- I find myself constantly relating things between the two and using experiences or knowledge I’ve learned here to help plan this event. This has been my first real venture into public relations and I’m finding it is so much more complicated than I thought. I’ve realized that anticipating fluctuations in a company’s image and being vigilant in preventing negativity is a full-time job that requires constant thought and effort. I am planning on paying much closer attention to BG’s outstanding PR team and how they manage a brand’s image and reputation on the internet now that I’ve witnessed how easily things can change for a company!

A change of scenery...

Today I am moving desks. After three weeks at BG in the intern corral near the front, I am heading… North? East? I don’t have a compass on me but I am heading to the back to sit with the rest of the ad team!
I have gotten pretty comfortable up here in the front of the office but this is PR and creative territory; I am the only advertising person for as far as the eye can see. My new desk will be back in what the singing gorilla** called “the penalty box.”

Things I will miss about the intern corral:
-working with the other interns and Melina
-getting to see Melina’s adorable and adoptable pitbulls throughout the day
-seeing all the people go in and out of the office
-listening to all the PR girls make their calls
-sitting next to the famous Orange Couch and Rockem & Sockem

Things I’m excited for:
-not having to walk the length of the office to get to Becca or Ryan’s desk
-getting to hear all the action that goes on in the ad room
-having trees painted on the walls around me
-being closer to a window with a pretty view
-getting to see “keep calm and carry on” everytime I walk to my desk

It’s time to start gathering all of my important things for the move later today, and maybe on my next post I’ll have a completely different perspective on things from my new location!

**If you’re wondering if “singing gorilla” was some kind of mistake or a misread, please note that it certainly was not- yesterday for Steve’s birthday, a singing gorilla wearing a tutu and sunglasses came into the office. My new desk will be directly to the right of where the singing gorilla was standing...