Week Ten: 20-27 Nov

It’s week ten of the Brunswick internship programme. The team takes you through what happened, day by day…

This is the tenth blog entry from the 2009 Brunswick Six, click here to return to the blog index

By Brunswick Interns

Monday 23 November (Tina)

Our final full week on the internship, and a relatively quiet start after our horrendously busy time last week!

First two sessions preparing us for our trip to Yorkshire, due to take place next week. First Sarah led a session on our preconceptions of ballet, knowing we will be visiting the Northern Ballet while we are in Leeds. And then Chris led a discussion on Yorkshire itself, centring on a Yorkshire quiz he had made that was both educational and entertaining.

Then Chris ran a session on marketing and advertising, and how they relate to PR. We discussed the definitions of these three sectors, and about how there are blurred lines that divide them. We then discussed the different kinds of advertising – TV, radio, cinema, outdoor, ambient – and then looked at the basics of marketing, and at how that discipline is actually about more than just communications, with a brief discussion on the four Ps: product, price, placement and promotion.

Tuesday 24 November (Param)

Tuesday morning was free for us to all work on the group presentation we would preview on Friday, and then present to a bigger audience next Wednesday – one on our experiences of this internship. For the first time we would be presenting as one group. We sat down to discuss our thoughts on the highs and lows of the programme, and were intrigued by how our experiences differed from one another.

In the afternoon we had another packed session with Chris – his final one – in which he gave us an overview on English politics. Having had not much experience on this subject I went into the session open minded about our political system.

Chris took us through the way parliament works – with a quick introduction to the House of Commons and House of Lords – and an overview of how new laws get passed. We then discussed government, and the role and powers of the cabinet and prime minister. And then had a quick overview of the courts of law, and their role in enforcing and possibly creating the law.

Chris also mentioned how many MPs are in part driven by their own ambition, which will mean they rarely vote against their own political party in the House Of Commons, even if that means they don’t truly believe in what they are voting for.

It got me thinking about power in England. The government has the most power, in theory because we voted for them by voting them the most seats in the House Of Commons. But if, once in power, they can basically play the system and make parliament do whatever they want, that has to impact on public trust in the political system, and the way the electorate relates to its the political leaders. Lots of food for thought!

Wednesday 25 November (Junior)

It’s BP Wednesday!

Everything seems to be going my way today, the train is on time, the weather is fine and I am going on a special visit to the London HQ of BP.

Every trip is special in its own way, but this has taken everyone by shock, mainly because it wasn’t originally on the schedule. It seems BP have specifically asked to meet us, partly because they are interested in the internship, and partly because they want to find out about our perceptions of their company. With this in mind I don’t know whether to be nervous or extremely excited, so I have chosen to be both!

On arriving at BP first thing, we were met by what seemed to be the toughest bouncer in the world! He seemed very cautious as we lingered outside the building waiting for the rest of the team to arrive, discussing light heartedly of the best ways to outrun him, should we need to! But despite the high spirits, we realised that this was an important building, hence the tight security, and why it was a great privilege to be here in the first place.

We started the visit by meeting a number of employees at BP. To my surprise, this part of the day was quite informal. We then went through a series of excellent sessions giving us a comprehensive introduction to BP and its vast communication operations. Different members of the BP comms team talked us through different areas, including an overview of their department, communications challenges in their industry, the role of corporate reporting, and sessions on print and broadcast media.

We’d also been give two scenarios to think about before the day. They were news developments that would impact on BP and we were asked to think about the communication challenges they might cause, and how you might meet those challenges. It was great to share our thoughts on these scenarios directly with the team at BP, who seemed really interested in our opinions. To be honest, I didn’t expect them to take our comments seriously, but they really did.

I could write about book on how engaging the whole experience at BP was, and how privileged we felt to have been invited there. The formal discussions, and further conversations over lunch, especially on the wider diversity issue, gave us an invaluable wealth of knowledge, ideas and opinions, and a more open mind into what BP does in general.

Along the way we learned about the Helios awards, oil extractions, alternative fuel investments, petrol prices and the current issues that BP face. And we even got a goody bag we at the end of the day!

But my overriding conclusion of our short time with BP was that here was a company that genuinely cares about diversity… the day has been brilliant.

Thursday 26 November (Jenard)

Today we had the morning to continue working on our final presentations. We seemed to have a bit more time available to prepare this week, though when you have more time than you are used to it’s so easy to get side tracked with minor details and not concentrate on the most important things. And yes, we had a little bit of that happening.

After lunch we made our way to the offices of PR Week, the PR industry’s weekly magazine, which is housed in the offices of Haymarket Publications in Hammersmith. There we had had a very engaging Q&A session with the magazine’s publisher Simon Lees and its editor Danny Rogers.

We had come prepared with questions for this session, because this was an opportunity to pick the brains of two people at the heart of the PR industry. And we were not disappointed. We covered topics ranging from the changing media landscape, to which sectors within PR were growing the most, to the general challenges in the PR industry, and specifically to the issue of diversity in the sector.

In addition to that, Simon gave us an insight into the business end of the magazine, and some observations on the business to business media landscape in general in the current economic climate. Next Danny showed us how the magazine and its journalists worked. We were able to compare this information with what we knew about how mainstream newspapers work.

They both demonstrated that they were really in tune with the PR industry, which explains why their magazine is the industry standard.

Friday 27 November (Claude)

In the morning we gave our presentation on our experience, thoughts and opinions of the Brunswick Internship programme. Sarah and Ashka watched, as did Chris, who’d not sat in on a presentation before, so that was a surprise! More importantly Femi Bola from UEL joined us – doughnuts in hand – to give us her thoughts on our presentation.

It went well – though this was really a test run, before we deliver the same presentation to the team at Taylor Bennett and a bigger audience of Brunswick, UEL, Unicorn, TB and other people next Wednesday. So we paid extra attention to Sarah, Ashka, Chris and Femi’s feedback.

And then to Brunswick for the final time. Our penultimate session took the form of a quiz, some general knowledge, some based on things we had learnt during the internship programme. It was a testament to how much we’d learned over the last ten weeks that we all scored well.

And then, finally, we had a chance to put to test all those networking skills Heather McGregor had taught us. Because a number of employees from Brunswick, including partner Andrew Fenwick, joined us in one of the meeting rooms for a drink.

It was a really nice way to end the programme. This whole experience has been one of the most important things in my life so far, and I’d like to say a huge thank you to everyone involved, and especially everyone at Brunswick, for their great sessions, and their support of the programme.