case study: Sookio Agency Bootcamp
Innovative work experience programme giving young marketers a glimpse behind the scenes
Sectors: Marketing, Education
The client
Us! Sookio Bootcamp is our annual week of remote work experience which launched during lockdown in August 2020.
Aimed at graduate level, we aim to give people a real-life insight into life at a digital marketing agency and something tangible for their portfolio to boost their career prosepcts.
The services
Consultancy
Marketing
Mentoring
Training
Video
The numbers
20+ attendees each year, 100+ in total
9 team members
5 days of work experience
17 Zoom calls
8 creative briefs
4 training sessions
14 blog posts produced
1 ident
8 creative promos
6 mentoring sessions
Roles secured with M&C Saatchi, Hotel Chocolat, Allia Future Business, the Civil Service and more
The challenge
We’re always looking for ways to give back to our community and the marketing world at large. Sookio Bootcamp sprang out of the turmoil of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, fuelled by our sense that new marketers were missing out on vital learning opportunities.
As the world went into lockdown, traditional avenues to work experience were no longer available, and we knew this was damaging for the industry and for the careers of new entrants.
We also recognised that challenges present opportunities! With the team working remotely, we decided to formulate an innovative work experience programme that used our own digital skills to ‘pass the torch’ and encourage aspiring marketers to reach their full potential.
It’s an approached that has worked brilliantly, and Sookio Bootcamp has now taken place four years running and become our flagship community activity.
The approach
Firstly, we decided to carefully define the intended outcomes of our Bootcamp work experience.
What did we want attendees to get from the experience?
We wanted to:
help boost employability through real-world experience
create something tangible for people’s portfolios
open up the format (and accessibility) through remote sessions.
Daily routine
Sessions were helmed by team members at Sookio, each able to provide their unique expertise. Every morning at 9am, Zoom calls began, each day focusing on a new topic.
We taught our ‘Bootcampers’ about our roles, our career paths, and how we keep our skills sharp. We also gave them a list of blogs, podcasts and videos to engage with, and offered challenging tasks and activities to work on.
Core topics
From agency life to copywriting, sales and marketing to video production, we spent the week immersing learners in the everyday processes and roles that form a marketing team.
This includes shadowing our planning sessions and offering specialist training in core subjects.
Friday was reserved for a look at the future, helping attendees to boost their LinkedIn profiles and create a CV that would get them noticed. Plus a Careers Q&A with the team. And happy hour!
Added extras
They were given free access to our Sookio School courses, and encouraged to create a journal, video, blog post or video chronicling the week and track their learning.
And in between were fun, practical creative challenges covering writing, design and creative thinking. Something for everyone.
Creative challenges
Each year one of the activities is to pitch us an idea for a creative promo.
We love seeing the imaginative ideas everyone comes up with.
And a concept from year one was quickly developed into the Sookio ident you see running across all our video content.
The results
Our first Bootcamp produced impressive results and followed a similar pattern in subsequent years, typically with:
20 students
7 team members
3 industry guests
Learning taking place over 5 days
17 Zoom calls
8 creative briefs
4 training sessions
5 blog posts
1 ident
4 creative promos
6 mentoring sessions
Shortly after Bootcamp, we found out that one of our attendees had just landed their dream job at M&C Saatchi agency – showing the real-world application of the skills they’d finetuned!
We ended up running a second Bootcamp in 2021 with similarly impressive results – and Bootcamp has now become an annual fixture in the Sookio calendar.
We also presented at Digital Leaders about the experience so we could share our tips with others keen to offer similar opportunities.
On the blog
Attendees’ campaign analysis blog posts are regularly in the top five most-visited posts on the Sookio website. Take a look: