BD NETWORK WORK EXPERIENCE - DAY TWO & THREE

Greetings! I promised a double whammy blog entry for days 2 and 3 - so here it is! you lucky sods!

Let's begin with Tuesday (day 2 at BD). I joined the rat race of sweaty suit wearing bankers to get into the city on the 344 bus. I was really looking forward to day 2 after day 1 was so brill. I can't really remember what I did, it seems like ages ago... 

OK - yeah - I did some research on Lurpak's competitors and worked on BDs rebranding of Apetina cheese (owned by the same company as Lurpak). You'll see what I was working on in about a month when the Apetina promotions appear in your local stores. THAT IS EXCITING - but it involves prizes, competitions and social networking...We all love 'em all. 

THEN I got my geek on and joined Nintendo for some work. It was my job to source contact details for a ton of companies from Arcadia group to Channel 4 and call them offering them a free Nintendo 3ds interactive unit. My big coup in this was securing 9 units to be sent to Chiswick Business Park. These will reach 4,500 employees and hugely important companies such as Disney, Universal and Paramount. These were companies who weren't even on the original list so *pat on the back for me from Nintendo. THANKS. *pats Nintendo back. Now this calling process took all day and was kind of dry if I am honest. However, I understand that it is part of the job and I certainly value the practise for my phone manner. I really learnt a lot from doing it in the end. So 60 e-mails, 60 phone calls and 60 left messages later I was done!

God, this blog isn't very funny. Sorry I'm knackered. Big love to those at Nintendo and Lurpak who gave me such cool jobs to do and made me feel so welcome. In three days I have learnt so much it's untrue. If I carry on at this rate, in two weeks I will explode with an advertising knowledge overdose.

Love x

lazy ol' me

Sorry that I missed out days 2 and 3. I'm doing so much advertising that I'm dead on my feet- I will combine them in a monster blog post tomorrow.

Love x

BD NETWORK WORK EXPERIENCE - DAY ONE

I have just returned home from my first day of a two week work experience at The BD Network (an integrated digital marketing agency based in Shoreditch, London and also in Australia).

My first day was, well, BRILLIANT! It was everything I expected and more. The agency was a little bigger than I expected with a busy office of a couple of hundred pairs of drainpipes and barely a grey hair in sight. The people working there were young, trendy and energetic. Everything you'd imagine from an advertising agency in this day and age. So I fitted right in to the aesthetic in my flannel shirt and skinny jeans.

The agency works with established clients such as Nintendo, Molston Coors (as in the beer), Coca Cola, Peugeot, Heinz, Virgin (a recent win) and the client I was working for today, Alra Foods - the company behind Lurpak..yummy. And yes, the fridges were rammed full of the stuff and I took some home with me, though unfortunately I have no bread on which to eat it.

Today I worked with the accounts guys at Arla foods but was sittin with some members of the Nintendo team as the office was so packed, this was cool. Dan, Luke and Harriet of Nintendo were chatty and friendly answering all my silly questions throughout the day. All day the office was thriving and the atmosphere was great.

The agency is literally split up into accounts, creatives, copyrighters, freelancers, planning, HR, traffic and finance (I may have missed out a section) and then within those sections the staff are assigned to certain clients (those mentioned above). A smiley account handler named Anisha gave me an informative whistle stop tour during which I forgot lots of names as my brain became saturated with coolness. Then I returned to my desk and got to work. I was briefed by Simon, a really friendly bloke from South Africa. He explained to me all about what BD had done for Lurpak and put it in perspective in context with the advertising and marketing process. I had similar dialogue with Nicole throughout the all day, she is the Arla foods account director and was exceedingly accommodating.

My task was to explore some products from Lurpak's competitors and find out how they are advertising and marketing their products. The idea is to keep this information flowing to the client to create a constant dialogue between them and the agency in order to keep on top of the market and planning for future business.

I had a great first day and I didn't want to leave. I can't wait to go back tomorrow and get working on some more butter related stuff. It was so much fun and I was astounded by how helpful and friendly the staff at BD were. What a brilliant agency - really made me realise that this is the career for me. Massive thanks to all those who helped my out today at BD. I'll let you know what I get up to tomorrow.

Love to you all,
Rob x

Another blogger/trend follower/career hopeful

Greetings all! (all probably being only my closest friends at this point. AKA the only people who will read this and also the only people I will tell about my blog for a while as it is an unhatched egg).

So I'm sat here in London (on the edge of zone 1) watching 'Mad Men' on the telly. The father I never had, Don Draper is shagging his way around the city as per usual...maybe I'll be like the father I never had one day....In case you haven't watched 'Mad Men' it is all about the 2 A's, advertising and adultery -nuff said. I can't tell you what is going on in the show, as ironically my attention is all on this blog post.

Anyway, let me cut to the chase: Everyone these days is saying being a blogger is about as important in forming a career path as having a 1st from Oxford...so here is me over using ellipses and getting my metaphorical 1st from Oxford. LOOK EVERYONE!!! I AM BLOGGING NOW TOO!!! six exclamation marks? yeah, all my potential employers are sure to hear that. But I can't help thinking I need to do more.

This blog is going to document my (probably very slow) rise in advertising along with anything which I see or get up to which is related to the industry. In case it isn't clear yet, I find the advertising industry disgustingly intriguing and I want to work as an advertising Account Executive in London after I get my standard 2:1 degree from university. So I'd better get on with achieving my goals.

Love to you all,
Rob 'Don Draper' Atkinson