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Not only do we have a white Christmas, but we've just opened applications for the Publicis Grad Scheme for 2011!

Full instructions on how to apply can be found at the following link:

http://www.publicis.co.uk/graduate-scheme/

We're all looking forward to hearing from you,

The Grad Team

My long overdue blog entry...

The other grads will tell you it has been out of laziness but I have been so busy I’ve managed to somehow contribute nothing so far to this glorious blog.

Whilst the others have given you a fairly decent overview of what we’ve been up to, they have missed out a few key events...

There was Movember. That started very badly. Having blonde hair I managed to grow a suspicious looking blonde/red thing that took weeks to look like nothing more than a few pre-pubescent whiskers. The amount of times someone would take a second look at me in the lift and ask ‘are you doing...no, you can’t be?’ was downright embarrassing. But, I stuck with it, and although I wouldn’t go as far to say it paid off, having it for the Christmas party (80’s theme) helped the last minute attempt at a costume. I also raised a few pounds for a very important cause.

The real reason I had to tell you about Movember though is that when we had our pictures taken for our grad page (soon to launch) Anthony and I were a week and a half in. So just to clarify, our moustaches were not fashion statements, just charity work. Apart from with Oliver who spent a week grooming what he called a ‘Brandon’ (Flowers), only to shave it off just before it became a David (Seaman).

The Christmas party was a fantastic night. We all still have our jobs, and the karaoke was unforgettable. A few of us managed to get up on the stage but by the end of the evening it was so popular you couldn’t get your hands on a mic due to the more senior members of the agency singing the songs of their youth. The next morning I woke up, alarm left unset from the night before, and after whispering every swear word I know during a twenty second shower, sprinted in to work a little later than usual. I don’t remember the entire evening which I’ve been assured is probably for the best.

We are all now fully settled in to our accounts, working hard and it has been a great few months. When I was applying for grad schemes I remember being told about what to expect and one thing was that no day was ever the same, that stuck with me and so far it’s fair to say it’s been true. Ollie’s been to Toulouse, Gina to a couple of the Celtic nations. Lizzie never stops talking about her trip to Hammersmith, and all round the agency there’s a buzz about the work.

We feel very lucky to be working here and we hope a few of you will too in the New Year. For now though, enjoy being a student or whatever you’re doing to fill the time. When the application goes up we’ll let you know and hopefully we’ll be reading some applications that would have put ours to shame. Ta da

JH

Quiz times...

Avid readers,


Although we profess to be working hard, the Grads are of course keeping up the vitally important "networking" end of their careers. Replace "networking" with "highly competitive team event", and the result is the Publicis Grads' team effort at the 44 Club's annual quiz night. The night commenced at the ITV television centre, where we mistakenly started to queue for one of the late night shows, and Ant got somewhat over-excited when he realised we were in the vicinity of the Daybreak studio. After some time of reorientation, we staked out our tactically placed table in the quiz room and the fun began. The rounds focused on "bad looking celebrities, bad language, bad ads, bad excuses and bad men" and needless to say our team stormed through. Upsettingly, we were denied victory over mere technical "points", but in terms of enthusiasm the PubGrad team were certainly firm winners. After getting lost on the way to the after-party (good work), we ended up at a very pleasant pub/bar-type location where the girls opted for mulled wine, with the boys ordering a predictable lager-fest. 

Over-and-out.


G

Busy busy week!

Ended up having a really busy week on the UB account...

New ads should be appearing on a TV screen near you the other side of Christmas - it really is amazing how much work goes into a 20second/30second ad...

Now we're all off to celebrate Gina's birthday - drinks on Baker Street!

Recommend checking out the amazing Ralph Lauren 4D experience posted on our facebook page - awesome light show!
Just search 'Publicis Graduate ADcademy 2011' in the facebook search bar...

AJH

1st Week on our accounts

So after 4 weeks of training in different departments in the agency, we've been placed on our accounts.
I've been placed on the UB and SCA accounts.

UB has all of these household brands under it's wing:

The SCA brands I'm working on are Plenty (which used to be Bounty), Tempo (a huge tissue brand in Europe, but relatively unheard of in the UK) and Zewa (a cheaper tissue brand, also available on the continent.)

The week flew by - there is lots and lots of learning when you get placed on accounts with such a strong heritage (I'm nearly drowning in paperwork) but it's been a really exciting experience.
The people on the accounts are great and it's a fast paced, lively and creative environment to be working  in.

We're still working on the application process for this year, but very soon all will be revealed so keep checking back for announcements.

Ant x

Royal Mail - you guys!!

So the chaps down at Royal Mail HQ have a questionable sense of humour!
What punnery!

Ant x

6 facts about the 6 ‘Gradlets’ that you won’t hear elsewhere:

Lizzie Alleyne

Age: 21. Nickname: Derek

1.       Often refers to herself as ‘a wide-eyed grad’.

2.       Very stylish.

3.       Loves asking senior management for ‘tips’.

4.       Is made a pack lunch (ham and salad pita) by her mother every day.

5.       Leaves work early to go shopping on Oxford Street.

6.       Religiously asks every Thursday, 'OK so who watched The Apprentice and Mad Men?'.

Anthony Harris:

Age: 21. Nickname: Antoine

1.       Always ill- loves going to Boots for Lemsip.

2.       Goes to ‘The One Show’ about 4 times a week live at the BBC (his flat-mates work there).

3.       Drinks whisky on the rocks in the pub and can’t handle it.

4.       Wore a suit to the opening day of ADcademy when instructed to go smart-casual (not recommended).

5.       Generally late and always wears TM Lewin.

6.       Secretly wants to work at an agency called Geronimo, not Publicis.

Gina Hood

Age: 21. Nick name: Ginsters & Hoodlum



1.       Never had a McDonalds

2.       Never watched The Apprentice

3.       Argued with a Wetherspoon’s barman over the amount of margarine in her baked potato.

4.       Her boyfriend is a rock-star.

5.       Claims to live in ‘She Bu’ (Shepherd’s Bush).

6.       Loves David Cameron

Jack Howker

Age:22. Nickname: Howks

1.       Claims to look and act like Ray Winstone but really looks like Gordon Ramsey.

2.       Impressionist specialist.

3.       Eats at least 3 Pizza Express meals a week (American Hot)

4.       Has a grade 4 figure skating qualification yet used to play rugby for the Harlequins academy.

5.       Has 2 idols: Rory Sutherland and Wagner (from the X Factor)

6.       ‘Selfridges ruined my life.’

Andy Humphreys:

Age 24. Nickname: The Humph, Iron Bru & King

1. A classic straight talking Glaswegian who says c**t more than please or thank you.

2. Adores a Boots meal deal for lunch and drinks around 2 litres of Red Bull a day.

3. Loves his girlfriend Helen ALOT but has a weakness for Pixie Lott.

4. Serious lightweight

5. Once threatened to beat Jack up (jokingly he claims- although Jack was near to tears.)

6. Exceptional at laughing at himself.

(composed by Jack)

Ollie Pym

Age: 22. Nickname: Trolly, Pymy

1.       Has Arsenal wallpaper, curtains and matching bed sheets.

2.       Abbreviates everything. ‘We work at Pubbey baby.'

3.       Claims to be a ‘power dresser.’

4.       Loves singing Diva Fever in the morning.

5.       After a Kronenbourg he behaves like Ben Kingsley in Sexy Beast.

6.       Thinks that he’s Shia La Beouf’s twin.

Ollie x

Marcel and Ronnie

As the Grads’ third week at Number 82 dawned, we headed down to the 2^nd floor and the lovely Publicis Dialog team. We were each put on a different account and soon settled in, going to client meetings and getting to know the ins and outs of the accounts. In addition we spent some time finding out about “Monsieur Publicis” aka Marcel Bleustein-Blanchet (who you can find out about here): the founder of the Publicis Groupe back in the early 20th Century and a rather pioneering gentleman all-round. Mike Welsh (CEO  of Dialog) explained how Dialog as an agency works within Baker Street, and showed us some of their award-winning work (see the piece for Zurich below).

It was with the air of an excited bunch of school children off on a geography field trip that the Grads headed off to Holborn for an external training day at the Mail Media Centre on Wednesday. After settling down with some rather tasty pastries and a good helping of caffeinated beverages we began a day of being taught about direct mail and its role in integrated marketing, conducted by an enjoyably exuberant lady. A few hours later - and significantly more informed - it was off to the Holborn local (although our unwavering loyalty to the Barley Mow remained) where the boys indulged in some suspicious non-Guinness “Guinness”.

The rest of the week was spent completing a task set by Katie (one of last year’s Grads) who works in Dialog: coming up with our own version of a planning strategy for one of the Visa briefs. It was a good exercise to apply some of the skills we had learnt during our training, and some of our creative ideas (involving Ronnie Corbett of all people) didn’t actually go down too badly. After that we came upon a genius Dialog tradition: cake Friday, a thoroughly excellent end to an excellent week.

Gina

Week 2 – Our Glimpse into the fast paced world of Production!

Our week kicked off with a seminar from the head of Print Production, about the production process and we were all surprised to learn how long it all took! It was also a good chance for us to appreciate the cost process and budgeting involved in a print ad, from hiring the photographer to a location finder – and let’s just say it was a lot more than we were used to spending on food for the year at Uni!  The Project Managers have to handle timings, budgets and creative work and are basically the mechanics moving along the process of a creative brief, which is why we were told how important it is to keep them all happy! Afterwards we managed to corner one of the Creatives who gave us a quick chat and tips on how to write the perfect  brief in order to help us stay in their good books (well for a while at least).  Just from our first day sitting amongst Production we could tell from the buzzing atmosphere how busy and fast paced the department is. 

We also had the chance that week go to a voice over recording in a studio in Soho.  The guy from X-Factor had nothing on our voice over artist! The recording was for a presentation on one of Publicis’ latest campaigns for Renault, The Megane Experiment.  Later that day we had a chat with a Producer from TV who explained how they managed to film the Experiment in Gisburn without spoiling the surprise of the campaign and keeping all the residents happy, including a few grumpy farmers! To check out The Megane Experiment, go to: www.themeganeexperiment.com.

At the end of the week Sharon, the head of TV Production gave us a seminar on a breakdown of what TV production involves.  She used an example of a Ballantine’s TV ad shot in Argentina, which not only made us realise how much we wanted to work on Ballantine's so we could go to Argentina (only kidding!), but also the amount of detail and stages TV has to go through, including choosing what clothes the cast are wearing, before final approval in the pre-production meeting.

(Andy & the grads with his birthday cake)

Last but not least our week finished off with a few drinks in the Barley Mow for Andy’s 24^th Birthday.  Unfortunately for Andy we all ended up having a far better time than he did as we watched him drink every Birthday pint bought for him in quick succession before going off to pick up his girlfriend up at the station, and trying his very best to act like he’d just finished work!

Lizzie x

The Grads first week of training...!

Hellooo..

So we're actually in our 3rd week now - running a little behind on updates (not bad for one post in!)
Just thought I'd run you through what we did in our first week at Publicis...

Day One: After a new joiners breakfast with the lovely people from HR, we were shown around all the agencies situated within 82 Baker St. After lunch, we all jumped in a taxi over to the Radio Centre at Golden Square to brush up on broadcasting code..

Day Two: Arriving at the agency at 9.30, we were greeted with a completely new reception layout. All the meeting room walls were removed, providing Nigel Jones (UK Group Chairman and Chief Executive) with a perfectly sized room for the annual pan-agency meeting. After lectures in account management and media channels, we helped Sorrell out with the agency party organisation.

That evening was the agency party: a lavish and debaucherous affair on the rooftop of a private members club overlooking the financial district. 

Day Three: Publicis rewarded all employees with a duvet day. Whats a duvet day you say? It's a day off - most employees spend it nursing a hangover, curled up to their duvet!

Day Four: After an early start for presentation hardware training, we were briefed by last years grads on the adcademy website. Tish Mousell (http://www.mouselltraining.com/) then led us in an insightful training session on 'How to be a great account handler.' After work, we headed down to the Barley Mow (the Publicis local) for a cheeky tipple.

Day Five: After a morning of adcademy website brainstorming, Simon Derungs talked to us about business etiquette. After an extremely filling lunch with last years grads, Tish then led us in a 'Time Management' training session. Perhaps it was a little ironic we were late for that session. Week 1 over! Off to the Barley Mow!!

Ant x

First Post

Sooo - first post!

In the next couple of days, we're going to fill you in on what we've been up to in our first 2 weeks training and get up to speed!

We'll also try and give you some hints/tips/advice for applying to the 2011 adcademy grad scheme.

However - as it's late - I'll simply leave you with quite an interesting article....

Creativity is akin to Insanity...

Ant x