This July we partnered up with Form the Future to launch an ambitious work experience programme for 10 school-age students. It caught the eye of the Regions of Learning team, who invited us to be part of their exciting new initiative - making the whole thing an even more valuable experience for the teenagers involved.

We wanted to give the attendees an insight into life at a creative agency and to open their eyes to the range of roles out there if they want a career in marketing, communications and production. So as well as spotlights on different team members, we included lots of activities into the mix to help it all sink in.

Here’s what went on…

Day one: Campaigns and branding

After being greeted by our team, our students spent their first morning with Sue, who was setting the scene in the digital marketing world.  

As we approached lunchtime, our Digital Strategist Clark talked about campaigns and all those buzzwords to look out for. We picked Specsavers as an example, and asked the students to think about their famous tagline - which is now 20 years old and has entered our day-to-day language, along with the formats and platforms they use to reach their target audience.

After lunch and a chance to explore the grounds at St John’s Innovation Centre, it was time for a Q+A with our Video Production Assistant, Imogen. As one of the youngest members of the team, this was a fantastic opportunity to ask questions about her career path to date, how and why she got here and any future aspirations!  

As day one drew to a close, Sue set an overnight branding challenge:

Show us your fridge! Pick a part of your house where you have lots of products. It could be your fridge, or the food cupboard where you keep cereals and tins, or the bathroom where you have all your toiletries and beauty products. Take a picture, with as many products in the shot as possible. 

We asked students what they noticed about: 

• The packaging. What stands out for you and why? Why do you think these brands chose these colours, these pictures and these fonts? 

• The wording used (look out for taglines and descriptions) 

• How familiar each brand feels.What would make them stand out on the shelf in the supermarket? 

• What you like or don’t like 

• Write down as many observations as possible. Don’t overthink it – you’re the consumer, there are no right or wrong thoughts here! 

The idea is to start thinking like a marketer, always with your eyes open to how brands present themselves, and the language and visuals they choose. Fun!

Day two: Get visual, get social

The sun was beaming in through the Sookio office, water jugs were refilled, fresh stationery laid out and it was time to meet our Digital Marketing Assistant, Sasha.  

To give our new students a true work experience-experience, we had them sit in on our weekly Marketing meeting, along with Head of Creative Marisa, and our Copywriter, Naomi. This gave them a chance to see how the cogs turn behind our savvy social media.  

We explained the different channels we use, why the content differs on each, and how we plan ahead to get a continual drum beat of activity going out.

It was also time for our monthly marketing report, so we were able to talk through the data and how we work out which activities are most successful.

Time for another challenge!

We set them another visual activity, People-Places-Colours. Thinking about these three topics, they had to explore the building, capture images on their smartphone, then come back and turn them into a social media post for Sookio’s own channels.

It’s at this point we realised the Sookio team was outnumbered by our students! One final Q+A gave our students one final chance to ask us anything; Our roles in marketing, how you can keep learning and gaining experience, what employers are looking for, what we’re having for dinner…

And at the same time, with our client party approaching, we also threw in an additional task; help us blow up balloons. And they did a brilliant job.

A big thank you to everyone involved

We absolutely loved having the students with us for the two-day programme, and feel like we learned a lot along the way too. If you’re reading this, well done - and you know where we are if you ever want to ask us anything about careers, or anything else!

Form the Future were so valuable in helping us develop the programme and finding us keen students from schools including Parkside, Comberton, Hills Road, Impington Village College. Our friends at Eastern Learning Alliance were able to promote it among students in their schools too. 

And a huge thank you to Regions of Learning who invited us to be part of this exciting new initiative. We really want the programme to have lasting impact and help attendees go on to have rewarding careers, and Form the Future and Regions of Learning have definitely supported us in achieving that goal, so thank you.

Next stop, Agency Bootcamp!! Our annual week of remote work experience for people looking to start a career in marketing is taking applications, so please share with anyone who’d benefit, we can’t wait to meet our third cohort!