Marketing Agency Experience

 Report by Hannah Mickleburgh, Year 13

Among the sarcasm and pseudo-intellectualism that is my twitter exists the lonely message that reads “Just so you all know, the same company does the marketing for Easyjet, Asda, Honda and Boots”. This company, hopefully grateful for that wonderful recommendation I gave, is Leeds-based Words & Pictures.

They designed our school prospectus, featuring our most photogenic students, and this – just so you all know – is why three Upper Sixth students (including me) were given the opportunity to join their youth panel for a day on the 28^th of January.

I missed my three-free Wednesday and nearly died in a snow drift because of it, but I’ll still say that it was worth it. Totally.  It’s almost as if I had a good time developing ideas to promote Specsavers that appeal to young people. They also had cookies.

Arriving at the building and using our grammar school education to work out that the door had no code and was indeed a ‘pull’, we made it to a room with a white board wall and many other teenagers - all of whom looked less crazy than us. We were then introduced to some of their staff. These people had all taken different routes, some cheaper than others, to work at a company where they go on employee recruits in Amsterdam and have a cardboard cut-out of a minion in their main offices. Oh, and who create productions for Unilever who basically own a market leader in nearly every industry, and everyone that makes ice cream – Solero, Ben & Jerry’s, Carte D’Or, HB Ireland’s, Wall’s, Magnum, Viennetta, Cornetto, and more – and for Universal, hence the minion.

There was a long video showing us lucky fifteen kids the best of their marketing, followed swiftly by a tour of the office floor that felt like it was carrying the recruitment message of ‘look at all the different things you can do’. Writers; quality checkers; an in-house photographer:  there was someone from every creative branch imaginable and more that don’t actually work in an office because they’re arty types and all that. Then we ate lunch. Then we gave our not-yet-disillusioned-by-taxes opinions on how to interest Key Stage 4 students in optometry.

Finishing early, we were told that, should we choose, we were allowed to force any of the employees to talk to us! From this, I learnt that routes into the sector are diverse:  you can do any sort of media degree, beg an internship or graduate writer position at a well-known newspaper of choice and from there the world is your oyster. It was fun, it was informative and, maybe most importantly, we got cookies.