This Internship has Sailed!
Williams Whittle was my first internship during undergrad. Daunted by career fairs, LinkedIn posts, and talks from my professors I knew I needed to get experience in the professional world under my belt sooner rather than later. Despite being a remote intern, I was still very nervous for my first day “in the office”, and I can confidently say almost two years later, I had nothing to be worried about! Williams Whittle and their team have provided multi-faceted guidance on what it means to run an advertising agency, I have gained work experience in so many more ways than I anticipated and have more clarity on the career path I want to take postgrad.
Before starting, my only knowledge of an internship was the 2013 film starring Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson, and it’s fair to assume that was not what my day-to-day would look like. I began at Williams Whittle mainly doing competitive research and brand audits for new business opportunities. I enjoyed getting to understand how agencies look at businesses through an advertising lens. Even with these early projects, I felt the work I was doing was crucial to the agency, and my work was being appreciated and utilized to the fullest extent. I also did analytics for another client, helping create dashboards of their impressions, reach, etc. Two years later little did I know I would be continuing to graduate school to get my Masters in Data Analytics for Marketing!
One of my favorite recurring projects was writing push notifications for a client. It was a task that was assigned to me and copywriting was something I had never attempted or even looked into before. After writing my first set of copy the client loved it! I continued to write the push notifications for this client over the course of my internship and expanded into Williams Whittle’s social media copy as well. I feel so grateful I was able to discover and strengthen this skill throughout my internship and the potential the Williams Whittle team saw in me.
Much of what makes being an intern for Williams Whittle special is the close communication throughout the team. As an intern, I got to work firsthand with account executives, the creative team, the President, and the CEO, an opportunity many of my peers could only dream of. Everyone I worked with provided support and clear communication of what was needed while giving me creative freedom to discover my strengths. The team provided me with constructive feedback to help me improve my weaker areas and guidance when I needed it. Working for an agency that specializes in nonprofit advertising also provided me with a unique perspective that I could not get in my classes, which emphasize messaging for for-profit companies.
I am so thankful for everything I have learned and for everyone, I have met during my time at Williams Whittle. The professional skills and industry insights I have learned during my internship are priceless and I am excited to continue my journey in advertising with the competitive edge Williams Whittle has given me!
Imogen is a Senior at the University of Colorado Boulder studying Marketing.
