I recently got a position in a UBC advertising club called Advertisinc and I was fortunate enough to make it onto the team that I wanted to work on: Warner Brothers. We worked in conjunction with a company called Gray Marketing which was hired by Warner Brothers. We were essentially responsible for promoting the new movie “Due Date” starring Zach Galifianakis (Alan from the Hangover!!!!) and Robert Downey Jr, who is Iron Man of course.
Warner Brothers was able to host a pre-screening of the movie this past Monday at the Norm Theatre which was really cool because the actual release date for the movie isn’t until this Friday.
The reason I brought his up was because as a team, Advertisinc was responsible for promoting this movie, which means getting the word out and letting people know about the movie. We were given lots of swag and premiere tickets to work with but basically, we had the freedom to plan/organize any events or promotional strategies that we thought would work. The only request that we were given was to make sure that we got proof from each event about our promotional efforts, which basically just meant get tons of photographs to show Warner Brothers that we were doing our job.
Before this gig, I had prior experience with event-planning but nothing that had ever been so “start-from-scratch” or with such limited time either. We got all our ideas together within 2 days and had only 2 weeks to plan and implement everything in time for the day of the premiere. From other events that I’ve helped plan, there was always a precedent that we could refer to, or some kind of protocol that we had to follow. But with this process, there was nothing like that. We were able to have a brainstorm session where we just blurted out any ideas that we could possibly have to help us promote the movie. I always have really outlandish ideas that are over-the-top and usually taken as too crazy but it was different for this project because we were looking for insane and attention-grabbing and out-of-the-box. Of course, a lot of the ideas were impossible but it was really refreshing to experience the creative side of marketing where I could come up with really crazy ideas and it could be considered “all part of the process.”
This has definitely been one of the best experiences I’ve had with marketing/advertising. And I’ve really realized that this could be something that I would genuinely enjoy as a career. I’ve known now for awhile that I’ve wanted to major in marketing, and recently decided that I want to work in the advertising industry (my dream job is to work with ReThink Communications. LOVE THEM!) And being in Advertisinc has really given me a good taste of the kind of work that I could potentially be doing. I love being able to get creative, to just get all my ideas out, and to have a supportive group around me that welcomes new ideas, both the good and the bad ones, mind you. But accepting nonetheless. I’ve been in the field, and I’m liking the scenery.