Sunday, May 07, 2006

How a Utah boy transformed into a big shot ad guy

Wednesday Chateau and I started our internship at Ogilvy & Mather. Since I certainly didn't know what Ogilvy was before I got into advertising, I am providing the following explanation from SourceWatch for your enjoyment:

Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide describes itself as "one of the largest marketing communications networks in the world [servicing] more Fortune Global 500 companies in five or more countries than any other agency."

Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide is the agency created by British-born advertising legend David Ogilvy in 1948, virtually from scratch. It now has 35 US offices and a further 359 worldwide in over 90 countries. It was the first agency into China, Korea and Vietnam and is now Asia's largest integrated network; also one of the first into Eastern Europe. Excluding specialized marketing subsidiaries, Advertising Age ranked O&M as the #11 agency network worldwide in 2002 with revenues of $589m.

So in three days, here are my first impressions of Ogilvy New York:

1. Everyone is really nice.
2. Everyone is really smart.
3. Everyone really likes to have fun.
4. Everyone really likes to work.
5. Everyone really likes the color red.

So yeah. We have been having fun getting our feet wet. The creative department is housed mostly on the eighth floor. There are several teams each consisting of a pair of creative directors and a 4-5 art/copy combos. On day one were introduced to our creative directors Josh and Joe. We also got to pal around with some of the recent BYU graduates now working there.

Our first assignment was do do a TV spot for The Mets. We came up with a few commercial ideas in the first couple days and presented them to one of the guys in our team. They all got shot down, but he preped us by telling us that everyone gets shut down the first time they present. That helped.

On Friday we were briefed on a new assignment along with the rest of the groups in our team. It's TOP SECRET right now, but soon enough you'll get to hear all about it.

So, in other news, this weekend I:

>went to the MoMA with the BYU interns

>got to see a film at the Tribeca Film Festival with Valerie

>got to sleep in late on Saturday

>visited my friend Jason in Inwood

>went to a swanky party in one of those midtown apartment with lots of windows that make you feel like you're suspended in air among the skyscrapers

>went to the First Corinthian Baptist Church with my friend Daniel

>went to my church

Allergies stink. My apartment is nice and remodeled. I'm finally getting to understand business casual. I love having unlimited rides on the subway. I love New York.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Seth! I'm so excited for you. I'm glad you're having a good time. Reading your blog always makes me happy. Hm... I'm glad you're living in the Colony next year. You'll have to come visit me and Julie in Santa Barbara. Anyway, I'll talk to you later!

el veneno said...

Yeah I'm more jealous of you than you are of me.
Looks like you're in for another sweet summer. Thanks for sharing your photos with those of us who are stuck in Utah.

el veneno said...

And I'm jealous of Hana for living in Santa Barbara!

Sarah said...

Sounds like you're having a blast! I'll be there soon enough... Jose Gonzalez, here we come! :)

Casey said...

Hi, I came across your blog while googling internship info. I'm interested in entering the ad world after college and I've been researching internship info for Ogilvy & Mather. How did you apply for it? All I can find is PR internships with them. Help?

shoot me an e-mail:
elsassc@gmail.com