"Warning lang ha, dito sa Comm & Sense, di ka namin bababyhin. We would treat you just like one of our regular employees" - Ms. Charlotte, Creative Director, on my internship interview
As part of our Mass Communication program, we have to render 300 hours of internship to media companies--150 hours for corporate and 150 hours for production.
While dealing with our research, I started sending my resume to media companies that I know via email. It went on for two weeks. I know that walk in would be the most practical way to get you noticed but I was juggling school works and clearance requirements so I did not have any time for that.
Middle of April came and I was losing hope already because I still haven't started my internship yet. I should have faced this internship needs even before the start of the school vacation no matter how busy I was during that time because companies replied to my email saying that summer internship slots have already been filled. Some just said they need to evaluate my resume first and will just contact me if I'm in. After getting numerous heartbreaking silent treatment, I did some revisions on my resume, making sure that it speaks for my potential, so at least one of the next batch of companies will finally hire me. It went on and on and on..
until I walked in to Comm & Sense.
150 Hours of Internship Experience
Comm & Sense is an advertising agency located in Makati which is one of the first advertising firms that uses inbound marketing to attend the client's marketing needs. Inbound Marketing involves creating the quality content for your client's profile so they could attract more audience. According to my research, this is the newest trend in the field of Marketing. Old marketing methods like buyings ads are not that much of effective anymore because survey resulted that people prefer relying information online than on magazines and newspapers.
I started my internship on April 28 and was assigned to the marketing communication department. I was supervised by Sir/Kuya Jomel, Editor Head, and Sir Toteng, Communication Director. During my internship there, my tasks included revising company profiles, writing product description, and making up catchy phrases and taglines for the client. There, I learned the art of copywriting. Copywriting is writing copies for advertising and marketing. In copywriting, your words should sell to convince people to buy your products. This is quite new to me although I've always been interested in putting my writing skills into the field of advertising. Unlike in doing my school write-ups where I don't need a specific target audience, in copywriting, you have to be exact. You have to be specific. Like in one project, I was given the task to do a copy for a specific Health and Wellness company. Who are my target audience? Sir Toteng said, healthy living freak moms who want to make sure that the .1% stubborn germ will be killed before it causes bad effects to their children. "Have a strong immune system with using this!"? No. "Turn your food healthy and organic!"? Nooooooo. "You might not be aware that you are feeding hormones to your kid's packed lunch. Here's the.."? That's better. It was fun and challenging at the same time.
I think the hardest task that left me mentally flipping the table was doing a copy for a company whose nature are real estate and stock brokerage. I mean, I don't remember writing an article that intends to call the attention of brokers and real estate holders. But with the assistance of Sir Toteng and Kuya Jomel, I was kind of able to accomplish that task.
Of course, what's the fun in the internship if you don't have your co-interns to share the experience with? I met there my co-intern, Hannah. Hannah belonged to Graphic Design Department though. They do digital designs for logos, posters, layouts etc. There were also two interns there, Marianne and Roxanne, but they are college schoolmates so most of the time, it was just the two of them who mingle together. Haha. But I got a chance to befriend them on their last day. Together with the new employees, Anna, Keisha, and Carl, we decorated the room for Ate Ayesha's baby shower. We lacked in art and craft skills to make flowers out of crepe papers and watching a Youtube tutorial for that was time-consuming so we just kind of made our own version of flowers that we teased each one's work like, "is that a flower or a crumpled paper?" and "please don't throw your used tissue papers here." Hahaha!
My 150 hours of internship there just ended this Monday, May 26. Comm & Sense has helped me gain new learning when it comes to communication. I've learned how to put into use my knowledge in Journalism to copywriting. Now I'm not only limited to writing articles, television show and film scripts, but I can do copies for advertising and marketing too. Aside from that, at least I have a grasp of what a career life is like. As long as you love the nature of your job, you would consider it as more of a passion and less of a work. Maybe that's the reason why I feel like wanting to extend my stay there even just for a few days, especially knowing that this time, the marketing communication people are now writing articles for the clients.
Since I'm done with the 150 hours of internship, I need to submit the weekly reports, certificate of completion and such to school. After accomplishing this , I'll wait for the orientation schedule of ABS-CBN for my 150 hours of production internship. Meanwhile, I have all the time to organize my new room, catch up with friends who I forgot for a while,
..and of course, blog. :)
