For nine weeks, these brave souls gave up sunning themselves by the pool to toil away in the advertising business in hopes of gaining valuable career experience. This valiant group of six came to be affectionately known as PlattForm’s Summer ’06 Interns.
They came from different backgrounds, equipped with different talents. They were assigned to multiple departments within PlattForm, learning unique skills to take with them back to college or onto their fledgling careers.
To the Media department, went Kyla Reed, a student at Pittsburg State University and Jeremy Booth, a student at Southwest Baptist University. PlattForm’s Production department was lucky enough to land Rebecca Breithaupt, a graduate of the University of Kansas. Too skilled to limit to just one department, Jeff Wilson, a University of Kansas student, shared his talents with the Print and Web teams. Paul Saylor, a student at Southwest Baptist University, lent his valuable time to the members of the Client Services department. Interactive felt the love when University of Kansas student Matt McClanahan joined its ranks.
As varied as the departments these interns worked in, so too were their job duties. As media interns, Kyla and Jeremy were treated as full-time analysts, said their go-to person Ana Triandafillias, a Senior Media Analyst.
“They each handled one account and had specific deadlines and responsibilities they had to achieve each day,” Ana said. “We wanted to integrate our interns into the media department so they could really get the experience first hand.”
The Client Services department took a similar approach with their intern, Paul. His supervisor, Nici Krehbiel, Senior Account Coordinator, had Paul help with reports, get ready for client visits, and file and complete dockets.
“We wanted to give him a full spectrum of tasks, so he could learn what each team does on a day-to-day basis,” Nici said.
Life as an intern sounded a little more glamorous for production intern, Becca. She acted as a production assistant on video shoots, logged tapes, wrote new creative, chose music for spots, and directed and edited a commercial. Becca’s supervisor, Beth Neely, a Senior Producer/Editor, said the goal the department set for Becca was to create her own television commercial from beginning to end.
“She did a great job,” Beth said.
During his stint with the Web team, multi tasker Jeff learned more about the ideas and concepts that drive web marketing. PlattForm’s web designers also taught him some useful design tips and tricks. As a member of the Print team, some of Jeff’s tasks included designing, discussing and presenting new creative ideas; uploading concepts to PlattForm web sites; and designing the creative for the intern project.
“Jeff’s new creative for the [intern] project was awesome,” said his supervisor, Alex Morales, Associate Art Director. “He had great input from the intern team and I think he took some great experiences and knowledge away with him.”
Matt was the numbers man for the Pay-Per-Click team. He was responsible for monitoring the PPC campaign progress throughout the day, entering data for PPC daily reports, entering leads as needed by the affiliate and IMS team, collecting numbers for PPC projections and handling emergency projects requiring data entry or simple data analysis. Sounds like a ton of work!
Matt’s direct supervisor, Dana Owens, a PPC Analyst, said having Matt on board “enabled the rest of the team to focus on complex tasks and exhibit management skills.”
For all of the interns, their duties at PlattForm also included working on an intern project. The group was tasked with developing a campaign for a client in the transportation and aviation business. The objective of the campaign was to bring new thoughts, ideas and creative suggestions to the table for the client’s marketing program.
During their final week here, the interns presented their project to their peers as well as representatives of the client – PlattForm’s CEO and founder, Michael Platt, and Tracy Kreikemeier, Vice President of Client Services.
“I feel there is a lot of value in doing a project like this,” Tracy said. “The presentation puts them into a stressful situation and simulates what it will be like in their ‘real job’ someday. It also gives them a great piece of work for their portfolio and hopefully an honest idea of what they will be doing in their chosen field.”
As for the interns, it seems as though they enjoyed their experience here, at least from what they told us.
“I love the people, and I just love the negotiating, competitiveness and excitement about the job and department,” Kyla said.
“My experience here was priceless,” Becca said. “I learned more than I imagined, and I enjoyed working here.”
For Jeff, the job was never dull, and he always had something to work on to keep himself busy.
“This is a fun and fulfilling place to work,” Jeremy said. “PlattForm works hard to keep the company morale up. A happy worker is a hard worker.”
Paul said his favorite part about his time at PlattForm was the people he worked with and the real-world experience he gained.
Now that their internships are over, it’s time for the PlattForm interns to head back to school or begin polishing up their résumés. And although they may have had to sacrifice their summer tans, they’re heading out into the world with a plethora of priceless working experience.
