Wow. As if Jason MacKenzie’s extremely interactive lecture yesterday wasn’t interesting enough, today we visited two agencies that were just as intriguing, if not more so.
Our first visit of the day was my favorite of the two agencies. It’s name is Battenhall, and I must say that if I was not extremely excited to start my full time job in August at a CPA firm in Pittsburgh I would definitely be applying to work there. The environment was so relaxed, yet you knew important work was being completed, and the lecturers were very enthusiastic and seemed thrilled to be speaking with us. Drew Benvie, the founder of the agency, was the first speaker and had a lot of insightful information to share about just PR in general and how he was brave enough to start the agency completely on his own several years ago. He described how he lets his employees have unlimited holiday and gives them the freedom to spend 20% of their time however they want to aid the research and development of the company. I was really impressed by what he and his company have been able to achieve in just a few years, and I would definitely be interesting in looking them up in the future to find out what else they’ve done.
Steph Bennett, who was the sixth employee of Battenhall, followed Drew and spoke to us about how she does a “social media audit.” I found this particularly interesting because I will be performing financial audits in my upcoming job, so even what we review is very different from what Steph looks at, the process is still similar. She showed us a cool video that was put together for Gatwick Airport before passing us over to Alice Simpson and Shannon Leahy.
These ladies described how they “newsjack,” which is essentially hijacking news that’s already going on. I enjoyed how they discussed their work with Waze because that’s an app we know and use in America, so it was easy to relate to and understand. They then passed us on to yet another speaker, John Atter, who is a Senior Account Director that works with data and insights. This also pertains to my future career industry because data analytics and growing increasingly popular and is now even on a section of the CPA exam.
The visit did not end here, though. We then had Meg Edwards and Leah Domenet speak to us about working with influencers, which also seems to be an increasingly popular subject in relation to social media everywhere. Their discussion was definitely interesting because I know what influencers are, but I never knew the workings that go on behind the scenes to get one to post for a company or brand.
Last but not least was Charlie Gregory, a senior designer. He spoke to us briefly about film, animation, and campaign work. Even though there are only 3 people on the design team, it seems to run smoothly and efficiently because of creativity and communication. Overall, my description can’t give this agency justice. It really was just a cool environment and seems like a great company to be a part of.
After a short lunch break at Veggie Pret A Manger, we made our way over to Burson Cohn & Wolfe. While there, we had four employees speak to us – Pete Way, Mark Davison, Petra, and Iwa (apologies if the spelling is incorrect). Essentially, each person spent some time describing their duties and a project they might have worked on to help us understand what they do. During the discussion, it was noted that “the goal is to connect and move people so they can grow intellectually and solve problems.” I thought this was really important for everyone everywhere, not just in this industry. Following their discussion, they gave us an activity to work on that required us to write a brief and present it to the group. Although this was a little nerve wracking, I did enjoy the process and getting to hear how everyone’s ideas differed even though we were all given the same description.
With just the evening free after both visits, Mya and I decided to explore yet again and ended up eating dinner at a delicious Italian restaurant named Giotto’s. There was a woman playing a piano, and I was excited every time she played a familiar tune. It was definitely a nice calming night to a busy day.