On their way to Berlin, COJMC work study students make a stop in New York City.

CoJMC advertising students study in Berlin

May 21, 2007
by Sawyer Stulken

Editors note: COJMC advertising students have accompanied professor Frauke Hachtmann to Berlin this month where they are visiting several advertising agencies as part of a study trip. Here's a report from Sawyer Stulken, one of the students travelling in Germany.

Our exciting adventure began Monday at 6:15 a.m. when all eight of us, including our professor Frauke Hachtmann, were on our first plane out of Omaha heading to Berlin.

Our first stop was in Newark, New Jersey, where we had an eight-hour delay before boarding our final flight to Berlin.

Luckily, Frauke had already arranged for us to take a bus into New York City so we wouldn't have to sit in the airport for so many hours. After a short 50 minute bus ride, we were walking to McCann Erickson, one of the largest global advertising agencies, located in mid-town.

We made a quick pit stop at Starbucks first to could get a much needed caffeine boost. When we arrived at the agency, we were greeted by Cari Lucks, who is the human resources manager for McCann. She gave us some very valuable information on proper interviewing techniques and internships the agency offers each summer.

She also introduced us to a young employee named Ellie who works in account management. Ellie is now working on the L'Oreal account and she explained that she really loves her job because she is able to see all sides of the advertising business. She also explained the hard time she had finding a job right away and assured all of us to not stress out about it because it will work out with the right attitude, good timing, and of course an excellent resume.

The last person we talked to was Juan who works for TAG Ideation, a McCann "think tank" that researches the intricacies of the youth market. TAG's mission is to make brands matter to young adults. Juan talked about various qualitative research techniques TAG uses to explore the youth market in lieu of traditional focus groups.

One interesting technique is called "Tagging Out," a method that involves "confessionals" by young consumers about being deprived of a certain product that has become part of their daily lives.

 For example, TAG recently gave a video camera to a young woman who video-taped herself going without "her favorite coffee beverage" for a week. He said it was quite funny watching her personality change when she was going through caffeine withdrawals because her reaction was about more than addition: it was about her lifestyle.

Overall, we gained a lot of useful information at McCann in New York. We will be visiting the Munich branch of McCann in a couple of weeks. After the meeting was over we were back on the bus to the airport in New Jersey to board our seven-hour flight to Berlin.

 I am happy to say we arrived safely and the only thing we are suffering from is a little bit of jetlag. In a few minutes we will be beginning our day with a tour of "Die Welt" newspaper, but that will be the topic of our next blog!