A letter from the intern’s desk
By Josh Newton
My internship at Goram & Vincent began over the summer while I was searching for something else to do while working part-time with Avon Wildlife Trust, where I look after their digital and social media side of things. I fired off emails to a bunch of digital and advertising agencies in Bristol and Bath asking if they wanted a keen young graduate to do any work for them (for free). As with almost all job applications, around 80% of companies are so busy and successful that they can’t possibly dedicate 20 seconds to send an email back saying ‘no,’ and a couple were kind enough to respond saying its something they weren’t taking anyone on at the moment.
Goram & Vincent (or Digby Digital as they were known then) did get back and invited me in for a chat, which resulted in an internship. They also offered to pay me too, which is a pretty rare occurrence for an internship these days!
I was keen on working within an agency environment as my background since graduation had been almost exclusively in the charity sector and I wanted some experience within a commercial environment. I believe it’s one of the most exciting areas to work in at the moment as technological progress and availability of high-tech devices mean that there is a great potential to create unique online experiences for users, and that’s something I really want to get involved in! The experience has been invaluable, and it’s been great to absorb some knowledge from a bunch of people who’ve got heaps of experience in the area.
Something I found particularly exciting working in an agency environment is the range of sectors and variety of clients that you work across during the day. The morning could be spent working on a project for a fitness brand, then followed by an afternoon carrying out work for an alcoholic drinks company. In my opinion, this is a really neat part about agencies, enabling you to gain a great deal of knowledge about how all sorts of companies work, preferable to becoming embedded in one particular area for your career.
Another aspect about agencies that’s different from working in-house with a small charity is actually having a budget to carry out projects. I’ve got used to running campaigns that have almost no budget or having ideas for digital campaigns, but knowing that it’s something that the charity wouldn’t be able to afford. Being forced to think of projects that you can be implemented very cheaply does have its advantages. You have to ensure that your campaigns that are original to be able to capture people’s attention rather than relying on traditional advertising and marketing channels for promotion.
My role at Goram & Vincent has allowed me to try my hand at a bit of everything. From working on ideas for how a campaign could run, writing copy for a site, working on-site for a client, carrying out social media analysis along with more general tasks like, transferring copy onto a new site and cross browser testing. I haven’t been stuck with being the drinks boy (I suck at making tea/coffee) and photocopier robot.
Hopefully Goram & Vincent have got a few benefits from taking me on as an intern also. I’m enthusiastic and up for pitching in whenever needed, and don’t mind doing more menial tasks like testing and content migration – and they can use the time that would have been spent on this to do other things.
Being a 16-24 year old male allowed me to provide a fresh perspective on brands, from someone who is a prime target market for many of them. This came in particular use when designing social media campaigns as I could tap into my own personal knowledge of campaigns that have worked well on these channels – and what companies do that makes you quickly unfollow them.
The internship opportunity has strengthened my desire to continue working in the digital marketing sector and I have gained valuable contacts in the Bristol hub. This has already provided some freelance work on exciting projects, and shall hopefully lead to a long-term career in the sector.