interned inside the creative department - internship experience report part 2

Interned In the Creative Department

My Department OverviewInternship Experience Report

Advertising Professional Practice II

Ran YuInternship Experience ReportAdvertising Professional Practice II

Where I Interned

Ran YuInternship Experience Report


my department overvIeW

During the 21 days, I was an intern in Ogilvy Qingdao Office’s creative department, I worked with their art directors and copywriters. Their

main job is to brainstorm the creative ideas including both art & copy to match the requirements on the brief from their client side. They are able

to work on multiple cases at the same time. The stage of advertising production is partially processing in this office, which draws on the art

directors’ hard skills.

I found that there is no boundary between the creative department and accounts department. Because of the size of the organization they need to collaborate extremely tightly and work hard to achieve one goal. That

is to offer more possibilities so as to benefit their client.

Therefore, my primary role within the creative department was acting as an Art Director, but I also participated in meetings held across the two

departments and tried to treat art direction strategically.

In the following sections, I will go into greater depth about collaboration between the two departments and my specialized interest in art

direction and strategy planning with the brief reference to my practice.


Usually, I worked as a junior art director to collect many inspirations to bring into our brainstorming sessions. I received the creative brief from my supervisor. Then I carried out individual brainstorming and presented my rough ideas to the creative director.

My efforts were demonstrated by the later presentation of a television commercial Silence Is a Warm Lullaby Song. It was rewarding to think that I had contributed to this creative idea and final product.

experIences In art dIrectIon

Where my intern



Sometimes, working on strategy was a major task of my internship. There is no single role within this advertising agency. I attended meetings held by both creative and accounts departments everyday. We discussed the target audience and the home appliances market with the aim to figure out the right direction for our client and their best strategy. This was a hard work but very interesting.

Producing advertisements is a basic task for an art director. This was an opportunity for me to present my hard skills including design, layout, hand drawing and creation, which I learnt and developed in university. Generally, I focused on print advertisement production and assisted other art directors to produce their works.


experIences In strategy plannIng

ship took place

This was my seat in the office. My main time spent here was producing advertisements. Such as the images displayed at the left side, I executed some creative ideas and contributed to the strategy. Specifically, when we worked on the 2013 Haier Spring Season Communication Strategy, the client asked for a low cost and easy way to visualize the feeling of spring inside their products selling stores. I carried out the idea of using a 3D ground stick, which was praised by the senior creative director and included in this creative strategy. The images from my computer are showing the work in process.





However, I found that meeting room was a place where I spent most time - often more than four hours per day. In the creative department, their work approach relies on group sharing and discussion. The meetings are very efficient and target the client’s requirements. This work process is quite similar to my university learning. Collaboration within teamwork is vital in the

advertising industry globally.

The images were taken in a meeting talking about the creative ideas of a television commercial for Haier washing machines. This commercial was executed and published in 2013 spring in China. I worked on this commercial from the beginning brainstorming until the final presentation to the commercial production company. The entire process took only five days. This

was a challenging project.



collaBoratIon WIth the clIent

Both the creative and accounts departments communicated daily with the Hair Group. The face-to-face meetings were held frequently, because immediate feedback from clients is important if

deadlines are to be met.

During my 21 days internship, we visited Haier marketing office four times and met with their marketing managers and top engineers in order to get feedback on our new design of the

Casarte Refrigerator Brochure. I participated in the process of its design and layout. And with the reference to the feedback from our client, the brochure was finalized and published in 2013. This

project drew on my art directing skills.



This image was taken in a meeting with both the creative and accounts departments. We discussed Haier’s Annual Conference that would be attended by many other of Hair’s partner

companies from the Chinese advertising industry including the Ogilvy Qingdao Office and Publicis China, etc. The conference was shifted from Beijing to Shanghai after day one which

brought more difficulties for our strategy planning.

Due to the uniqueness of this conference, the strategy was thorough and comprehensive and included PR events, advertising and marketing. This was an IMC (Integrated Marketing

Communication) campaign and it was executed across two Chinese metropolises.

I worked on this strategy thoroughly and considered all the details, such as which hotel the conference would use and the design of the invitations. Although this was a huge project with

many different stages, it took only five day to develop the strategic plan. I found that in Chinese advertising industry, practitioners are more stressed than Western advertising agencies due to

their condensed work pressures.

creatIve and strategIc thInkIng


changIng dIrectIons

The opportunity to work in this office has clarified my views and priorities and helped me to determine my future goals within the industry.

Previously I was more interested in art direction and this was what I mainly focused on at the university. But based on this real industry experience I have now clarified that my interest now is more towards strategy planning. My reason for shifting to this priority is because the main role of art director is different in China compared with Western countries. Chinese art directors particularly focus on producing printed advertisements and the graphic design skills are expected. I observed that they usually work more than twelve hours per day and they are stressed extensively in their job. I want to work hard, but job satisfaction and work life balance is important to me.



I believe my best skills include creative direction and working with creative inspiration. Both were developed in my university training in Australia and I am looking for an opportunity to practice these skills in a dynamic environment.

Strategy planning is perhaps the best direction for me, because it is a combination of marketing analysis, creative thinking and efficient communication with the client. I feel this aspect is more closely related to the concept of the ‘advertising campaign’, which I learnt so much about through three years university study at RMIT. Therefore, pursuing this strategy area particularly appeals to me and I sense that this could be an area of possible development for me in the future.


My DepartMent Overview

Internship Experience ReportAdvertising Professional Practice II

interned inside the creative department - internship experience report part 2

Documents

creative director

creative ideas

creative brief

art directionwhere

art directionexperiences

art copy

junior art director

art directors hard skills