Growing Up in an Ad Agency
An intern’s view of BLÜ
Starting on your first day at kindergarten (or maybe even before) your whole life is centered on preparing for the real world. Your parents, teachers and even family friends will give you words of advice on how to become the best doctor, lawyer or even astronaut. I myself knew in high school I wanted to be in advertising. Flipping the pages of my favorite magazine or watching the Super Bowl, I would see these ads and think how amazing it would be to say I worked on this.
Now that I’m a junior in college, my professors tell me personal stories about what has worked for them in the past and also what back fired. I read books after books written by professionals on everything they think people need to know to be prepared for the advertising world, which in reality is still just learning second-hand information. I have created advertisements for class assignments and learned how to generate the maximum GRP’s for the project, but in the end the person I’m creating the ad for is my teacher not the client or the target audience.
I knew that I needed some real experience before I graduated and was really on my own, so I started applying for internships in the surrounding areas. That’s when something on The BLÜ Group’s website caught my eye. They said that past members of the CRÜ have admitted they learned more in the 3 months they were working with them than in the 4 years they spent in the classroom. Bingo! That’s just what I need. (Yes, I realize that other companies would teach me a lot too, but BLÜ actually said it.)
As I was getting ready for my first day at The BLÜ Group I was excited because I was actually doing something in the advertising field and learning first-hand information rather than sitting in the classroom all day and living through the stories of others. On the other hand, I was also deathly nervous (as I always am starting something new). What if I messed up and cost them thousands of dollars? What if I don’t get along with them and they just think I’m some stupid college student? What if I’m not actually cut out for this? Did I just waste 3 years at college?
Luckily, all of those worries went away after the first day. Everyone was really friendly and when they had me working on a project they made sure to let me know I could ask questions if I didn’t know how to do something (totally different from how you see interns treated in movies or on TV). It wasn’t some scary environment where I came to work nervous everyday of what I might be working on, but it was actually fun. Who knew?!
I learned a lot at BLÜ. From how to work with different clients on different types of projects to all the different things you can do to a piece using Photoshop, besides the standard basics I learned in class. I also learned everything and anything about social media I could ever want to know thanks to Tony giving me a project to dig up all of the information in preparation for their social media guide.
Most importantly I learned how to voice my opinion. Before I would always be worried that I would make someone upset if I critiqued their work so I would just say it looked great. I learned that it is important for everyone to be honest about what they think so together as a team we can come up with the best idea possible.
Now that my internship in coming to a close, I realize how lucky I was to have the opportunity of actually having an internship that I enjoyed. Most of my friends either couldn’t find an internship or they hated their jobs. In looking back on how I was before BLÜ, I realize I didn’t know a lot of important information I need in order to be successful in the advertising world and I do really feel that they have helped me grow up. I’m very excited to be able to bring back all that I have learned to my senior year in college and actually applying my new skills to my future projects. I’m so thankful The BLÜ Group took the time to teach me all they know and will never forget “The BLÜ Experience”.