#IamSocial: the finale
Welcome to the third and final month of what has been a truly epic in-office, inter-experiential journey across multiple departments – the #IamSocial grad scheme. For the past month we’ve continued bouncing around teams and soaking up knowledge like dehydrated sponges. While the weather has become colder, the pace of the #IamSocial grad scheme rotations has heated up as we approach the end.
Work stuff
While Nick’s in Editorial, and Meghan’s in R&I, I spend my mornings in Strategy where I’ll end up after my rotation is complete. WTF is strategy you may ask?
So you guys like…strategise?
Excellent question. In the broadest sense, it’s our job to understand 1) where the client is now, 2) where they could be, 3) how they can get there 4) are they getting there?
The practice of figuring out the best way to get from here to there
The only routine we really have in strategy is a constant need to keep a finger on the pulse of culture and technology. As a result, spending my mornings here has quickly transformed me into a very efficient reader, observer and experiencer of a whole load of ideas and information.
On a day to day basis, the team works closely with the Research & Insight squad to unlock valuable social insights and customer truths, while we also spend a lot of time building killer pitch decks and writing creative briefs.
When briefing creatives, we’ll try to get away from our desks and go sit somewhere relevant to the target audience and product we’re working with. So far I’ve been part of a cream cheese briefing while tucking into a lovely breakfast, drunk lager in a sports bar for an Olympics brief, and sat down with the team in a very hip Shoreditch restaurant/co-working space, in order to allow us to step into the sockless loafers of the fashion forward consumer.
Don’t you feel so Gen X early adopter right now?
In the afternoons I’m currently with the Audi team, helping out with some influencer relations and YouTube work. For someone who can’t drive, I’m gonna know a hell of a lot about premium cars after two weeks here.
Meanwhile, Meghan spent some time in Paid Media. After a rapid 101 in paid social strategy, she was given the opportunity to assist with setting up brand targeting for a client around the MOBO awards, pinpointing who the social media ads should be targeted towards, including the challenge of sussing out their musical preferences and interests.
Nick had an absolute ball with the adidas team, working on football campaigns. This included researching footballers, working with player imagery and tweets (he basically sees himself on par with Messi now).
Extracurricular
We Are Social holds a variety of events that help brands stay on top of trends shaping the marketing and advertising industry. In the past few weeks our Town Hall has played host to one of the UK’s biggest ever virtual reality events, showcasing ten VR companies from all over the country in an interactive arcade, Think Forward, a glimpse at 2016’s social trends, and Gen Z 101, where Snapchat pros and Insta-influencers taught us about dank memes and peng tingz.
Instagram star Mercedes Benson rocked up to chat about Gen Z influencers
Furthermore, after my stint as poster boy for HP’s Movember drive, I was encouraged to try it out IRL. Together with a few other gentleman in the agency, we formed “We Are Mocial”, and agreed to sacrifice our self-dignity in the name of men’s health by cultivating some fine looking upperlip snotmops.
No, that brown sauce was unfortunately not photoshopped in.
From NoMo to SomeMo
Soon we’ll have what will surely be an epic company Christmas party, present our final grad briefs and head off for a well deserved break. It’s safe to say when we first started here we were a little like this:
But hopefully the past few months has made all three of us feel a little more like this:
Now the serious stuff begins. But until then…
@wearesocial #gradlyf A photo posted by Alexi Gunner (@alexijamesgunner) on Nov 27, 2015 at 6:53am PST
#gradlyf