Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Aidan Sykes
(@aidanpsychs). I’m a Humber business marketing student who is ambitious and looking
to break into the Marketing/Advertising Industry. If I had to sum myself up in one
sentence it would be…“Young creative with a business mindset.”
Adweek is an amazing opportunity for students to learn,
network and get some insight on the Marketing/Advertising from Industry leaders.
It’s a week full of speakers-series,
workshops, and events that you don’t want to miss!
Next Generation Day
It was an early morning at the Bell TIFF Lightbox. I
struggle to get up for my 8am classes, but this morning I felt like a little
kid going to their first day of school. It was a restless night, had my clothes
picked out the night before, and was ready to learn and network with the
industry’s top executives. People from all over Ontario were in attendance,
some travelling more than 6 hours to be here! The day started with a panel of
speakers spanning from Directors’ to Account Managers. I really liked the mix
of experience because we got insight from all levels of the Marketing/Advertising
Industry. I took a lot of notes and decided to share some of them with you
(Check Out My Black Book Of Advice at
the end).
A very compelling story that really motivated me was from
Emma Brooks, Digital Strategist from Publicis Modem. She graduated from
Dalhousie University and decided to try and find a job in Toronto; she knew no
one and had only been here one time before. She used all of the networks she
knew from school and cold called every possible place she could find to get
information interviews and try to get her foot in the door. Did I mention she
was only able to stay in the city for a week! After preparing for her journey
from Halifax at the end of her week in Toronto she had multiple internship and
job offers….
After the panel was done we got some words of wisdom from
Burke Moody (Exec. Director of AICE New
York) who discussed the wonderful world of post-production editing. It wasn’t
the most engaging of speeches and interested 1/15th of the crowd. I
wished they had someone that would have spoke more to the entire industry
rather than one specific niche sector. On the plus side he showed us some really
cool edited movies that highlighted the work that editors do that we always
overlook. You can see some really cool videos (If you can only have time for one, watch The Shining) at: http://tinyurl.com/a7j238q
We were than
split into groups according to the agency that we were assigned to. There were
so many times when they were calling out agency names that I just wanted to get
up and pretend to be apart of a group, but I managed to restrain myself. People
had the chance to get an insider view of agency’s like TAXI, McClaren McCann,
BBDO, DDB, Olgivy, Juniper Park, etc.…. My head was spinning with all the
amazing agencies’ and corporations who were willing to open their doors to us. I
was a part of a group attending KBS+P. It’s a smaller agency that just won
Target Canada as a client. They were open and very welcoming. They gave us the
typical spill about the company, office tour, and broke down job titles to give
us a better understanding of agency life. The best part was when they gave us a
chance to work on a current creative brief they had. They even said that they
were going to present some the ideas we came up with to the client! I don’t
know how much involved we could have got.
After meeting
some great people at KBS+P the group and I attended the networking event. We
met up with all the other attendees; I got to meet some great people while
enjoying good music, food and drinks! Unfortunately the industry execs weren’t
able to attend, due to playing catch up from a missed day of work.
Overall it
was an experience that has taught me a lot and I would not trade it for the
world. I would suggest if you want to get into the Marketing/Advertising
Industry you need to block off everything for Adweek and attend as many
sessions as possible. Knowledge you’ll gain will be invaluable and give you a
leg up when looking to break into the industry.
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