Week Two: 14-19 June

It is week two of the first Brunswick Internship programme for 2010. The interns talk us through what they got up to day by day, in a week dominated by sessions about the media, newspapers and the news agenda, as well the two retail companies to be presented on at the week’s end.

This is the third blog entry from the 2010 Brunswick Six,
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By Brunswick Interns

Monday 14 June (Thandi)

Today was rather busy at the Unicorn Jobs offices; we started with a presentation workshop with Sarah, then there was a session on ‘newspaper basics’ with Chris, and at the end of the day a meet and greet with past interns and guests from Taylor Bennett and UEL.

We were all excited to hear the feedback on the presentations we’d each delivered the week before. Sarah talked us through what we did well and where we needed to improve; the advice was extremely helpful, not least because we had another presentation to write this week.

In Chris’s session we learned about all the national newspapers, their readership and circulations, and their agendas and political stance. We’d each had to research a different paper ahead of the session, including The Sun, The Guardian, The Times, the Daily Mail, the Daily Mirror, and the Telegraph, and we each delivered our findings. Hearing about the similarities and differences between the various national dalies has made it easier for me to understand which papers offer the best content and comment for different areas and audiences.

We also looked at how newspapers present different kinds of content, and it was very interesting to discover that most of the papers we looked at followed a similar format: page one lead story, page two politics, page three something light, then home news, world news, news in brief, editorial and op-ed commentaries, before features, puzzles, classifieds, business and sport.

After a long but interesting day we all began setting up the office for our meet and greet evening. As people arrived we introduced ourselves and got to know our guests better. Some of the attendees had participated in the previous internship, others were from the Taylor Bennett offices. and Femi from the UEL employability office checked in to see how our first week had gone.

It was great to talk to the previous interns, who had valuable advice on what we should expect throughout our time here, and what we should do when we finish. We spoke to Charlotte and Jenard, former interns who now work at Brunswick itself, and Claude, who is working at Brunswick’s sister company, Cantos. We also spoke to Yinka, who participated in the very first Brunswick internship session, and who is currently taking part in a graduate programme with Newham Council.

Speaking to the former interns was great, because it gave us a sense of where we might be at the end of this internship. According to all who attended the meet and greet, hard work and dedication are vital to succeeding in this or any field; this is something we all have taken on board.

Tuesday 15 June (Nahidur)

Tuesday, the day after the office party. I was knackered. In the morning we had a free session, which meant catching up on all the work that we had to do for the rest of the week. I spent most of it working on my group presentation on the Home Retail Group.

In the afternoon we had a really informative session with Chris on the broadsheet newspapers. The session started off by looking at the day’s ‘news agenda’, and we discussed what sorts of stories each paper was likely to prioritise. Then we went into the broadsheets in more detail. I found it particularly interesting how important comment and analysis is in these titles, more so than ever now there are so many rival news providers. We looked at the broadsheets from an editorial and commercial context, and in turn discussed past and future revenue streams for the newspaper industry.

This session with Chris was packed with information, but we managed to take all of it in. Personally, I had learnt a great deal about the broadsheets and how newspapers work in general.

Wednesday 16 June (Ataur)

We began Wednesday morning with a free session to catch up on our work for the week; mainly the presentations that were due for Friday’s session with Sarah. This week, it was the boys against the girls, and the competition was really hotting up. We held secret meetings in separate rooms as we didn’t want to give anything away. We also managed to convince one of the girls that the CEO of Home Retail Group would be coming in to say a few words on Friday, and she actually believed it (well, for a minute or two!).

Because the teams weren’t sharing information, I am unable to give an update on the girls’ progress. However, our preparation was going well. We had pretty much gathered all the necessary information; we just had to collate it and structure it into presentation form. We were confident of doing well and even had a few practice runs to ensure we were fluent in our presentations.

After lunch, we travelled to Taylor Bennett for our regular session there. We’d been told internship founder Heather McGregor might be there to meet us this week, so we left early to ensure that we arrived with plenty of time to spare. Alas, she was otherwise committed, though we have a session with her next week, so won’t have to wait too much longer to meet her.

Today our hosts were Faye Flexer and Iona McDougal, who had prepared a quiz to test our knowledge of PR and communications. We had thirty minutes to complete the quiz, which was a lot of fun. There were a few questions which required a little debate, because we’d interpreted them in slightly different ways. When Faye and Iona returned, we went through our answers, which were generally correct.

We were then split into two teams and were given 10 minutes to prepare a pitch to win the PR contract of Greenfly, a revolutionary plane which only released hydrogen and water as a by-product. ‘Motions PR’ consisted of Brenda, Akila and myself, while Thandi, Nahidur and Keosha made up ‘PR for Good’. Considering we had such a short time to prepare, I thought both teams did fairly well, although – obviously! – Motions PR clearly came up with the most innovative and creative ideas.

We decided to employ a celebrity chef to be the face of the PR campaign and to cook famous dishes for each of the different continents as the plane flew around the world, but only using the water which was released from the plane as a by product. The other team came up with a campaign of branded bottled water to give to the public.

And so another day came to an end. I can honestly say that it has been an amazing week so far and we have learnt so much, particularly from Chris’ sessions on newspapers. I am looking forward to meeting Heather next week and hope all the sessions continue to be as fun and interesting as they have been so far.

Thursday 16 June (Akila)

Thursday morning started off pretty smoothly, that was until we sat at our desk and opened up our email and found bundles of work that had to be completed by the deadline given.

What we thought would be a relaxing free morning session turned into a hectic one, with our presentation deadline only a day away, everybody was running around trying to finish off the final pieces of their work. There was a hint of competition in the air as this week the presentation task pitted the boys against the girls and nobody wanted to lose. Before we knew it, it was already lunchtime, but today we had no time to go and grab anything, so many of us decided to eat at our desk while continuing with the work.

The afternoon came by very quickly and that bought a session with Chris. He gave us an insight into the world of tabloid newspapers and how they operate. Getting the opportunity to delve deep into the world of the press was invaluable, and gave all of us a real insight into how papers are actually cleverly thought out when it comes to lay out and structure.

As time ticked by another working day was drawing to an end, but we knew our work did not as we had deadlines coming up.

Friday 18 June am (Brenda)

The whole week had been spent preparing for our presentations which required us to give an overview of a specific retail company, provide a share price chart relative to the sector, discuss who advises these companies on their PR and provide an analysis of press coverage over the last 12 months.

The groups were split by gender; the boys were given the task of researching the Home Retail Group and the girls Marks & Spencer. While the gender split was probably the easiest way of splitting the groups, it definitely built a lot competition and therefore much was riding on our performance.

On the Friday morning, we met early to make some last minute amendments to what we had to present. The boys chose to go first and delivered an impressive presentation that covered all the required points and more. We went after the boys and also presented well. I was particularly impressed at how well we managed ourselves during the post-presentation questions.

Generally, the feedback we received from Sarah mirrored my thoughts; there was a definite improvement from the previous week’s presentation, and I personally felt much more confident presenting to the group than I hand just seven days earlier.

I had my homemade soup for lunch (two days running- as duly noted by Thandi!) and we all prepared for our weekly session at Brunswick.

Friday 18 June pm (Keosha)

It was nice seeing some familiar and new faces this week at the Brunswick offices. We were greeted by Charlotte and taken upstairs to wait the arrival of Kim Fletcher, the Managing Director of Brunswick’s sister company Trinity.

Kim is a man with a comprehensive knowledge of the media, especially newspapers. He gave us a breakdown of how to understand the media, and in particular discussed how the internet has disrupted the print industry and the effect it may have in the coming years. He allowed us to ask him any questions regarding the media, about things we may not understand or may be curious about. This was extremely helpful, because we all found we had a lot of questions in our heads.

After our session with Kim, Roberta Whitter and two of the interns from last year – Claude Peters and Jenard Dyer – who we met before, came down to give us a brief introduction to the concept of media reviews. They explained how a media review works, and gave us examples of reviews they had previously written. The idea of a review to me seems simple, but the process of producing one appears hard and challenging. Claude warned us we’d probably have to do a media review at some point in the internship, so we should all start practicing now.

Another familiar face was James Olley, who had come down to give us his session on navigating the media landscape. James explained the extent to which newswires, PR consultants, newspapers and journalists are integrated together, and showed us how this wonderful world of the media is a 24/7 place. He told us to make the media work for our own advantage, and to immerse ourselves in all the media out there, two pieces of advice I think we all intend to follow.

After our afternoon at Brunswick, Thandi, Brenda, Sandy from Unicorn and myself got together to celebrate Thandi’s birthday. We ended up in All Bar One for some food and cocktails. After a long hard day, that was an amazing way to finish the week.