We had an intern in the past week. Charlize, like a lot of people her age (15), is wondering what to do in the future. How do you get into the field of Marketing & Communication and what does the work even entail?
The team at GLADTOBE asked Charlize if she could write a blogpost about her experience, explaining what she learned over the week.
Hello,
My name is Charlize K. and I’m 15 years old, I’m half German and half Australian.
My whole life I’ve been traveling through the world due to my parents’ jobs. I got to see the industries of travel, finance and politics in all different parts of the world.
Due to the variety of fields I have had the pleasure to experience, the question of what I wanted to do in the future was always on my mind. I quickly found myself looking for something that gave me the freedom of creativity but the firmness and fierceness of business.
So I swiftly found myself in the marketing and entertainment industry. But where to start and how to succeed in this field was still a mystery to me. That’s where GLADTOBE came in and gave me a hand with all my questions.
One week at GLADTOBE
The first day was both really complex and interesting. Stella Bender, the Account Manager, showed me the ins and outs of GLADTOBE. We worked remotely, which gave me a sense of how this office operates from all across Germany without any issue.
I had my first meeting with Laura Tortel, the Social Media Consultant, who took me through “how the communication of a marketing company works” and what important part consistently posting and staying active means.
The next meeting was with Cristian Heymann, the VP of Media, where Marketers were showing their upcoming events. A really interesting concept of how companies try to benefit from each other through collaboration and partnerships.
We talked a lot about what you can study to get into this line of work, how broad the possibilities within a company like GLADTOBE are, and how marketing in general works.
The next two days were just as exciting. Experiencing a Social Media Meeting was really interesting. You could see how people coming from different lines of work (Account Management for the client’s perspective, Strategy for the insights, Design for the creativity and Social Media to put it together), brainstorming, collaborating and helping each other, each with their own expertise. It was pretty cool to see everyone working for a common goal, helping each other out. Definitely something you don’t really understand up until you’ve seen it done in person.
For me, a clear statement that you really should try getting internships in fields you’re interested in to see and experience things you wouldn’t learn from Uni or online courses.
One thing that always interested me as well was the strategy aspect. To help me understand it better, Cora Rodrigues, the Strategy Lead at GLADTOBE, showed me the ins and outs of her department. We talked about the details, like demographics, that go into strategy.
For instance, most companies experience growth and expand their networks primarily through genuine, face-to-face interactions and recommendations. In contrast, platforms like social media serve a general of ¼ additional benefits. In Germany however, offline advertising proves to be significantly more effective, largely due to the exceptionally high viewership of German television.
AI is a tool almost everyone uses nowadays. But to believe we’re using it to its full potential is lying to ourselves. It’s such a wide, undiscovered tool, we definitely have way more to learn about it before claiming we’re using it to its full potential.
To show me how the professionals do it, I had a meeting with Eric Vissers, the VP for Marketing and Consulting. By far one of my favourite meetings. He helped me understand how we can use AI for business in a whole other way and how AI can be both a blessing and a curse in the industry. It was super cool.
Thursday was a really fun and creative day. I talked to Nicolo Ferretti, the Designer. He helped me with my social media post that I was working on. He also explained the concept of how Corporate Identity works and how GLADTOBE uses it in their company.
Last but not least on Friday, I got to sit in a couple of different meetings and had a lovely chat with the team, who were all so kind and supportive throughout my observation week.
Overall my time at GLADTOBE was really amazing. I learned so many different and new aspects about companies in general but specifically marketing companies and what goes into creating projects and campaigns.
If you have a slight idea in which direction you would like to go in the future, I would always recommend an internship like the one I could experience myself.
Thank you GLADTOBE for this incredible opportunity!
