Last week RAPP hosted a July 4th Mixer Kickoff. Everyone from every department was invited to this “party”. The purpose of this was so that everyone in company meets everyone, because in reality you only interact with whoever is on your floor/department. Throughout this get together many other events were announced for August such as attending baseball games, yoga etc. Food and drinks were served, the new hires were also the ones serving drinks at this get together to spark conversation with the employees who have been here for a while.

As for having role models at work, I would have to be honest and say I do not have one. I DO however notice how hard the employees work and how passionate some are about their work. There is one Art Director here who is passionate about what he does, I really admire his work ethic. He is able to see what others cannot in our meetings. He is kind of like “the voice of reason” and he is never harsh with critiques. He really does have an “eye for design”. 

Lets start with attendance. Naturally I am an early bird so I am always the first one in the office (in the creative department), I always like to be early to everything. Things have been going smoothly so far. I am definitly trying my best to get out of my comfort zone. I constantly ask questions, I attend meetings to observe, take notes. I ask the Creative Directors if there are any projects I can help with, I shadow my supervisor. Moving into planning, I am really good at keeping track of things. I constantly check my calendar to check meetings, times, availability. I like to email other interns and keep updated on our intern project.

Things I do need to improve on are my skills in all Adobe Programs. I do not know many keyboard shortcuts, it looks bad if you are just constantly using the mouse. I had one Art Director watch over me as I worked, and he asked why I wasn’t using the keyboard (embarrassing moment) but because of that I am determined to remember as much keyboard shortcuts as I can.

   I have just been assigned my first group project at work, the Intern Project. The interns were separated into two groups of five. Each group has two Designers, and three Strategiests. Together we have to create a campaign, all on our own. Going beyond created just visuals, we have to create a creative concept, a strategic plan, creative comps, a landing page, figure out media costs, create budget, create a launch timing and much more. It’s very intimidating but exciting at the same time. This project is only for the interns but it is a real client, not an in house project. The project at RAPP is kind of like a test run, we do not have a budget, we only need to create comps and research etc. We are not launching anything, after we have collected all the research, statistics and how much everything would cost IF it was launched we then have to create a PDF. It’s still a bit early to describe how working together is going.

I was also given an intern project at my last internship, Whole Whale. There were only 3 other interns, Our group was much smaller. There was no teams, we were all on one team, and we had to work together. Besides the size of the groups, a difference between these two projects would be execution. We DID have a budget, we had to actually buy promoted tweets and advertise on YouTube. Working together was a challenge, it is never easy working in groups. There is a lot of clashing of ideas, personalities etc. Our Youtube video was successful, we had over 10,000 views and only spent about 5$. The twitter campaign could have gone better, we did not get many retweets or clicks. Nonetheless it was a great experience and we taught Whole Whale what to do and not to do in their next campaign.

   My first week at RAPP, I attended a lot of meetings. I attended something called “Got Skillz”, they host this huge meeting every couple of weeks. Two groups present a campaign they have worked on in the past and the winners win a gift card. They present in front of 50+ people. It was a great experience. The deck the groups presented were fantastic, the work, the effects, everything. The Designers spoke with great confidence.

After only a week I think it’s safe to say Advertising is a crazy world. You really have to be a thinker, you have to always be on your toes, you have to be able to spit out great, creative ideas on the spot. You have to think beyond making a design just look good. Again as stated before my first week was pretty slow but my second week should be a lot busier. We have a lot of meetings planned inside the company and outside that interns must attend. We will  also be handed a “summer intern project“. This will be an internal project (the art directors in the company will come up with the project, not coming from a real client). Aside from the intern project, all the interns will help the creative directors with the clients they have now. I will be working with HPE (Hewlett Packard Enterprise). I will be sitting in during client briefs and design meetings. I am still not sure what specifically my duties will be but I know it will be design related since I am working in the creative department.

    “What’s a typical day in the office”? Truth is, I wouldn’t be able to describe one. There is no such thing as a typical day in Advertising. Everyday is different, I do not have set hours. Some days I may get out at 5pm other days 8pm maybe even 11pm (I’ve been warned by past interns). I don’t take lunch the same time everyday. I am preparing myself for those sleepless nights.

No sleep in Advertising

    Work attire really depends on the company you work for. Many companies may ask their employees to dress ‘business casual’.  

What is business casual?

   In the Design and Tech world, companies allow you, even encourage you to dress freely or casual. You can add your own creative touch. That’s how it works at the company I work at. I prefer to dress casual, I like to be comfortable.

   Many people in the creative department dress super casual, I’ve seen Art Directors wear plaid t shirts, skater shoes even flip flops. However workers in the Finance department wear more business attire (pencil skirts, pants, button down shirts). Interns were told to dress up when meeting with clients.  I work in the creative department so I am in an ‘open’ work area. The work area is an open workspace, one side consisting of long desks, chairs and computers for the employees and the other side with printers, cutting boards/tables. This area would be suitable for a designer.  The hours are typically 9-5 but this also depends on your supervisor, how much work we have to get done, meetings etc. I am required to work 40 hours a week. All employees have a one hour lunch break, it’s up tp you if you want to take the full hour.

I applied to many internships, the process was tiring

I am a Creative Intern at RAPP. I work under the Art Directors, Creative Directors as well as my supervisor who also happens to be my mentor throughout the internship, her name is Toni Kaleda. I will be helping in the creative process, sitting in during client briefs, researching, coming up with concepts. But before starting my internship, I was applying to many openings on Linkedin. I became very interested in Advertising after taking a course at City Tech. I really enjoyed the creative process, and thinking of strategies and concepts.  I am not into Video Production or Print Production so I strictly looked for Design/ Art DIrector Internships and applied to many. Prior to applying to RAPP, I did not know of the company,I just applied.

The description they had seemed to fall in line with what I was looking for. The application process was fun. It was not your normal ‘boring’ questions. They asked weird and fun questions such as ” If you had your own agency what would you name it and what would be cool about it” and “who will be president in 2068, describe them in 3 words”. A week passed by and I got an email from HR saying the Creative team looked over everything and would like to schedule Skype call. The interview was short, only about 10 minutes.

I was a little nervous during my interview

I was interviewed  by the Art Director, Senior HR and someone who worked in Marketing. The interview began with the basic questions “why did you apply, tell us about yourself” but it started getting trickier. The Art Director asked me for a pitch (luckily I studied before hand) and my definition of “Creativity”.  Short and sweet, to the point.

   RAPP is an Omnicom Company. The company was founded in 1965. I would say it is relatively big, It consists of 1000-5000 employees worldwide. It is also a public company. They have locations in New York, Los Angeles, Dallas, San Francisco, London, Dubai, Paris, Singapore, Sao Paulo, Berlin, and London Gatwick. They are a Marketing and Advertising company who strive to bring brands and people together through Digital Advertising, social engagement, commerce, etc. I just completed my first week and it was very easy going. It just consisted of orientations, intern breakfasts, meeting everyone in the agency (creative department, finance, strategy etc).

   I was pulled into a couple of meetings which was exciting. I report to the Creative Directors as well as my supervisor who is the Senior Copy Writer. My supervisor is great, she is very helpful and always tries to pull me into her meetings so I can observe. Yesterday was when I really started getting pulled into work. I sat in during a client brief which was very excited. Very different than what is taught in school. I enjoy observing how the creative directors interact with each other and how they convey their ideas. The space is incredible, big spacious rooms for board meetings, bright colors. The creative department has its own floor and it is completely different compared to the other departments (in a cool way).

 http://m.thedrum.com/news/2016/04/28/lor-al-uk-and-ireland-appoint-rapp-deliver-personalised-experiences

   The news article above congratulates RAPP UK for winning L’Oréal UK & Ireland.  L’Oréal UK & Ireland have appointed RAPP as the beauty brand realigns its efforts to create more compelling customer experiences for current and prospective customers.

L’Oréal UK and Ireland appoint Rapp to deliver “personalised experiences”

http://www.codeworldwide.com/newsandinsights/Adzu/code-worldwide-has-been-nominated-by-the-jury-of-i-com-data-creativity-awards/

   The news article above talks about CODE which is a partner of RAPP. Their case study “Castrol and the Connected Car” was nominated for the Mobile category at the I-COM Data Creativity Awards. The I-COM Global Summit is the world’s leading Data & Measurement Strategy event.