Finishing Strong

This week has been a crazy one.  Between group projects for both of my classes, my first paper due, and the internship placement phase coming to a close, I have been very busy.

In my Advertising course on Tuesday I gave a presentation with two of my classmates analyzing a group of six adverts.  First we needed to share three controversial advertisements that were complained about to the ASA, or the Advertising Standards Authority.  This is a government body which is responsible for monitoring of a variety of advertising mediums in the UK and fielding complaints from the public. They analyze the complaints that come in and decide if advertisements need to be removed from publication.  We chose to present three advertisements that were related to PETA, or People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.  Two were adverts that PETA released in the UK themselves and the other one was an ad that PETA complained about.  The second part of the presentation was to criticize any three ads that we wanted to.  For this portion, we decided to analyze three retail holiday adverts: one for Marks & Spencer and two for John Lewis.  Our presentation came together successfully and went very well in class.

Today I gave a second presentation, this time for my Marketing course, with five other classmates.  The premise of this project was to take a brand or product and create a one-year promotional plan for entry into the UK.  My group chose the American favorite Trader Joe's.  After completing a lot of research and spending many hours working on our PowerPoint, the presentation turned out great.  Our professor seemed to really like our promotional ideas, and I am very happy with how everything went in class.

After class today I had an internship interview at Public Eye Communications Ltd.  Following many conversations with my EUSA placement manager this week and two additional internship offers, this opportunity came along.  It really seems like it is going to be an amazing experience and a great fit for me.  Public Eye is a personal PR firm which represents around 50 actors.  I will be helping out with many different PR related projects and may even get to attend a special event or two.  Everyone that I met at the firm seemed very welcoming and appeared to really love what they do.  I can't wait to start my internship on the 21st of February!