The Training Wheels Are On, But I’m Still Cruising

As I sat in my cube a few days back, attempting to generate poster ideas with fellow intern Abie M. to promote Ham Day 2009 - I was handed a copy of a book intended to prepare my mind for “greater creative thinking”. But before I talk about the book, I’ll explain, to the best of my ability, just what Ham Day entails. Ham Day is a biannual event here at Liggett Stashower where our Director of Brand Voice, Mark S., brings in a rather large ham for the whole agency to enjoy. As simple as it sounds, everyone here really seems to love it. As an added bonus, on this particular Ham Day the entire agency has the privilege of listening to my fellow interns and I as we take center stage to present our book reports. And although I’ve been told our reports need only be presented via the wonderfully simple, always visually pleasing Microsoft PowerPoint, I can’t help but feel like presenting something to ad professionals via PowerPoint is the equivalent of showing up to an art contest with a page torn from a coloring book. It’s a bit, shall we say, underwhelming. Luckily, if my presentation doesn’t end up meeting certain aesthetic expectations, I have what I consider a tremendous excuse: I’m a copywriting intern.

Anyway, back to the book written to make me into the next great creative. It’s called The Do-It-Yourself Lobotomy, and although I haven’t begun to read the book, the fact that a member of the creative department presented me with it is an example of what I like about interning at Liggett. It’s what I call the “trial and educate” approach that this agency takes with its interns. As an intern, I am given the opportunity to contribute to real client work, while at the same time receive guidance from the experience and resources of the experts that surround me. The way I see it, it’s the perfect way to let us interns learn by doing (as featured in my last entry), while at the same time allow us to learn from the pros.

Patrick B.

Creative Intern

"Are we friends?" ...on Facebook that is

It was back in my senior year of high school when I created my first online profile on Facebook. It seems like much longer than just a few years ago when Facebook decided to open its doors to people other than just college students. Although sometimes overwhelming to think about, social media has transformed the avenues in which individuals, students, companies and so on, exchange information and engage with their audiences – and it is quite phenomenal.

I will be the first to admit that I have not yet mastered all of the social media options out there. Although I am an experienced Facebook-er, and have dabbled in Twitter and LinkedIn, I know that I still have a lot to learn.

A few short months after I joined Twitter, I "tweeted" about the agencies in Cleveland that I was interested in applying to for summer internships. As a fairly newcomer to the Twitter world, I was surprised to find that my tweet was responded to by @buildingbrands, Liggett Stashower’s twitter handle. The response stated their interest in receiving intern applications for the summer. From that moment on, I knew that exploring what social media networks have to offer would be essential for my professional, and personal, growth.

When I began work at Liggett, I had the opportunity to take part in a brainstorming meeting to develop ideas that will strengthen and enhance a client’s image through the use of social media. It was interesting to see the shift being made between developing personal needs through social media, to developing business needs through social media.

I have learned a lot about how businesses are choosing to use social media networks and why they believe it is the next step in successful marketing practices. It is close to impossible to watch television without seeing commercials and shows mentioning their links, Facebook profiles or Twitter accounts to follow. Companies are now hiring full-time employees and/or interns who will be focusing primarily on creating an online image for the company or organization. If you love everything social media, a position such as that might be a perfect choice for you!

A good example of how different types of companies are using social media to market their products and drive traffic to their site is Little Debbie, who has created a website called Internhero.com. Little Debbie’s main goal is to engage interns from various companies around the country in a photo competition in order to win boxes of Little Debbie muffins for their company and employees to enjoy. One of my fellow interns, Evan, decided to enter the contest and was one of the lucky winners! After receiving the news, the agency is looking forward to the muffin delivery – in this case, I consider us all winners.

Rachel Z.

Connection Planning Intern

Outside the classroom

I go to a teeny tiny school in the middle of nowhere. I interact with the same twenty people in all of my major classes. I am used to doing things my way. It sounds selfish, but it is a reality. I like to be in control (its part of my personality profile. . . I’m an influencer and a dominator). In school, this works because my peers allow me to do work in group assigned projects because they don’t want to do it. At Liggett, the interns are all leaders, we all have ideas, and we are all used to doing what we want. This has created a learning experience above all other learning experiences.

Having peers who care as much about a project as you do means a variety of opinions and ideas. It creates a challenging work environment that makes you a more skilled listener, a more humble team member, and a better-prepared student. In school, whoever has the idea makes the decisions, and it is rarely challenged. Here, we challenge each other all the time. The interns all have their various strengths; they know what works and what doesn’t. For example, I came up with an idea for our T-shirt, but when Abie actually started to sketch it out, she realized how boring it would be for clothing. So it went back to the drawing board. Bonnie had come up with a witty saying for the shirt, but then the new design would not accommodate it. So we had to give up our personal preferences for the good of the team. Then we found out it would be too expensive to do the new design, so we had to readjust again. We have all gone through the process smoothly, but it has been interesting to see how different life is when you aren’t trying to get an A, and are instead trying to get a job accomplished. We are all contributing and all sacrificing our own personal ideas to make collective ideas that are definitely better than any one person’s single idea. This has been a hard lesson for me, but a helpful one as well. It is not that I think I have the best ideas, it’s just that I am not used to other people caring enough to contribute. That is what makes this experience real.

A few fun updates from the office:

~3-D press kits are my new obsession. I think they are the most fun way to promote a product or event to the media, which is why LS makes them (duh). They are little kits with client’s product samples in them, press releases, and others special goodies. We even made one that had a cake in it.

~There is a man hanging part way out of the ceiling. It’s been happening a lot lately. Which goes to show that there are a still a few things to be done around here . . .

~Yesterday we had a happy hour christening for the building. There were snacks, drinks, and threats of intern karaoke. Luckily, that was only a threat (since I have a phobia of karaoke due to an unfortunate performance at the age of 13). It was definitely a fun time to get to know employees in a casual atmosphere.


Morgan P.

Brand Management Intern

Closing the Case of the Mondays

Mondays are dreaded at most jobs, but I have started to like them since they mean I get to come back to Liggett. Although this new building is really nice, it is the people here that make it such a great place to be. We came off of an exciting week, with the first whole week in the new space, the exciting news coverage of the move that Danielle posted and our intern project really coming together, I have nothing but good things to look forward to for this week.

We even had the entire city of Cleveland celebrate our arrival with a drummers and a festival!!…wait no, that was the Ingenuity Fest. But still, it was exciting. Coming in on a Monday after a meetingless weekend, it is sometimes difficult to get back into the swing of things. I know at first I had to take 20-30 minutes to read old e-mails and jog my memory of what I was working on, but that is precious time when working in a firm.

Now I make a to-do list at the end of every day, just before I leave, so that I know what to start on right when I get in the next day. This is especially helpful in getting myself refocused after a particularly enjoyable weekend. Another thing I might do is ask my mentor and others around the agency if they need me to do anything. Usually I can gather enough little tasks to get me back into the swing of things.

If (and that’s a big If) I ever have downtime, quick smaller tasks do well to fill in the gaps, and they also let me do work for other people in the agency, which is beneficial for both them and me.

Liggett is really helping me grow in managing and making the most of my time. I may never have a “case of the Mondays” again!

Evan R.

Brand Management Intern

Facebook Application

Who’s been on Facebook for three straight hours today? This guy! But no, I wasn’t chatting with my friends, doing quizzes or tagging pics. I have been working with one of our clients’ fan page, and monitoring conversation on a forum about a contest that we are running.

I have to say, I love this internship so far. I first got into using social media for strategy in a class last fall. Since being at Liggett, I have been able to use much of this knowledge with quite a few projects and assignments. A couple of weeks ago I was able to attend a Webinar on word of mouth (WOM) and how we can use it for our social media strategies. I’ve been encouraged to engage with others on Twitter and they are completely cool with me staying logged in to Facebook all day.

Now sure, I’m working, but it’s doing something I already enjoy, connecting with people through social media and utilizing these tools to help clients. One of the best things has been that I have also learned some new tools and how to integrate them into what I am already doing. For example, I have had a Gmail account for a while but had never used Google Calendar before. It allows you to make dates and events and you can even publish your calendar onto your Facebook page, so that every time you update the calendar in Gmail, it gets updated on Facebook! This may sound simple but I had no idea that you could do that, and it is the little tricks and things that make a social media plan work.

I have also learned how to use Excel and this might make me look dumb but trust me, I’m not. I never had any reason to really use it in school or my old jobs. But my mentor Jimmy is the King of Excel and he is working with me so that I learn to use it properly.

The best thing about interning is getting to apply what you have learned in school to real life situations. That kind of experience increases both the value of your experience and that of your education.

Evan R.

Brand Management Intern