Working in the world of marketing and brand development has always been an interest of mine, so when given the chance to spend a week in the industry with ‘Elephants Can’t Jump,’ (unlike an elephant), I jumped at the opportunity.

After joining the herd officially on Monday morning, I was briefed with my exciting week ahead. Here’s how it went.

DAY 1:

The Elephant’s have just started work on a new client who I can’t name, but I can say…are egg-celent . My first task involved researching branding strategies of UK eggs as a comparison for the client that we were potentially working with. I was able to understand how these brands position themselves, what strategies to incorporate and brand themselves with and the best ways to innovate current ideas of what is successful and what is not.

My work experience also involved a number of morning ‘theory’ sessions in which I learned:

• how to build strong client relationships
• analysing data and content to understand what’s hot and not in social media
• how to tailor social media to your clients brand
• how to strategise a brief which included writing a proposal, finding respondents, the approach to the study, how to produce a correct fee to charge, legalities involved and the discussion guides to planning how the event will pan out (a lot to consider here!)

DAY 2:

I experienced what it’s like to work in the big smoke. Once arriving in London, we hopped on the tube and got off at Waterloo before making our way to the offices at WeWork. Working from home and working in a beautiful open-plan, modern offices are two completely different worlds.

Being a true Londoner for the day, I had to get a Pret for lunch! Not long after this, Bob, Vanessa and I all hopped back onto the tube to make our way over to Marylebone for the second part of our day – consumer research groups.

After arriving at the beautiful La Cucina Caledesi cooking school kitchen and meeting the chef, we started prepping for our live market research that evening. This involved 14 human ‘Guinea-pigs’ trying out variations of our clients product for us to gather feedback on. I was able to see first-hand just how valuable focus groups and direct feedback can be for prepping a product launch. I also was able to observe and learn how all this data could be effectively collected and boiled down into recommendations for the team to pass on to the client in their ‘debrief’ session later on.

DAY 3:

My second ‘field day’ involved a trip to the supermarkets with Bob.

We spent the afternoon going around three popular high-street supermarkets, and analysed current patterns and trends within the food and drink world. We looked at what was selling and what wasn’t and made comparisons between the stores. This showed me that it is highly important to be constantly updating your knowledge of the industry as well as providing background research for clients entering new markets.

DAYS 4 & 5:

Alongside my supporting client work, I had a few more ‘theory’ style sessions from the Elephants.

I learnt how brands define, express and innovate themselves as well as the digital side of marketing; at social media tools and the future of social media. This all allowed me to thoroughly understand what makes a marketing company successful and what thought processes need to be in place. It also opened my eyes into understanding the important relationships that have to be considered when interlinking retailers, businesses and clients.

The knowledge I’ve consumed from my work experience week with the ‘Elephants’ is extortionate. I feel as if I ‘struck gold’ with Elephant’s Can’t Jump as they embraced me as one of their own and deepened my knowledge of the ever-changing social media and brand creative world. Thank you so very much.

A note from the Elephants: It was an absolute pleasure having you Daisy. Thank you for your hard work and readiness to learn. Well done and good luck!

We’re happy to say that Daisy isn’t our only young honorary Elephant. Read about our past intern’s work experience here. Jack spent 2 months with us as an intern and was offered a place on Sky’s business strategy graduate programme (which was his first choice out of all the places he applied to!)

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