What do you do if your business wants to run work experience but the pandemic disruption is still holding you back?

As our Founder Sue Keogh explains in her talk at Digital Leaders Innovation Week, our Sookio Bootcamp week of remote work experience offers inspiration and practical tips to give you confidence in running a similar event yourself.

What’s Sookio Bootcamp?

In August 2020, following on from frustrations around the challenges faced by young people and the huge impact on their education from school closures, we decided to do something in our own little way to redress the balance: a week of remote work experience to take people behind the scenes in a digital marketing agency and give them valuable experience to kickstart their careers.

We were so proud to see they had secured roles including:

• Community Manager at a retail brand

• Product Operations Manager, virtual events platform

• Comms Executive at a media agency

• Digital Marketing Executive at a recruitment agency

• Ecommerce Assistant at Hotel Chocolat

• Trainee Manager, PR agency

And seeing as it was such a success, we thought we’d do it all again the next year!

Read our post full of helpful tips and advice or watch Sue’s talk at Digital Leaders to pick up some tips.

What were the creative highlights?

Throughout the week we set a mix of creative challenges. Writing, analysis, visual content - we made sure there was something for everybody. We wanted to make sure everyone came away with something tangible for their portfolio. And they looked a little like this!

From the challenge: pitch us a creative promo, our winner was talented designer Daisy Alleno-Powell, who came up with this brilliant little gif.

And we all loved the funky little animation above that answers the question: Where did the name Sookio come from?, created by Jazz Holwill.

And just like last year, we gave our Bootcampers a chance to dissect recent marketing and advertising campaigns and talk about what worked really well - and what didn’t.

We kicked off with a blog post about BBC’s widely successful #LetsGoThere video ad for Tokyo Olympics, written by Lucy Cooper.

Lucy talks about the challenges of exciting the public for the Olympic Games in a year where pandemic still overshadows many large events, and how the video is a gift that keeps on giving, giving the audience a chance to spot a new Easter egg every time they watch it.

Julia Cieslak, another talented alumna, took on the challenge of analysing Dove’s Reverse Selfie ad and really dug for what made the campaign so impactful while smoothly following on from the brand’s positioning in their previous campaigns. Julia looked not just at the marketing side, but also brought up the cultural issue that inspired the initiative. Have a read!

And speaking of impactful messaging, Asma Arshad looked at Google’s Get back to what you love ad - from the concept to key messages and visuals, while Miles Newman focused on website accessibility.

Still on a roll from the Dove-focused blog post, Julia created another strong piece on shockvertising. What is shockvertising? Is it effective? How can you do it right, and what if it isn’t right for your brand? Find the answers to these pillar questions and see if shocking your audience could work as part of your marketing strategy in Julia’s blog post.

On a slightly different topic of leadership, team dynamics and various personalities we all encounter in the marketing world, Carmella Merzo explored why is powerful creative teams have both introverts and extroverts working together.

Read her thoughts (and tips for creative introverts) right here.

We also ran another valuable careers day. Watch Sue quizzing fellow agency founder James Cotton from Onespacemedia about early career skills that get you off to a brilliant start.

What did they say?

We asked for feedback at the end of the week and had some lovely comments! If you’re thinking about running remote work experience yourself, these should give you an idea of what the attendees themselves found most valuable from the week.

I really can’t explain enough about how much I gained from it all. Meeting the team was amazing and makes me excited to imagine myself working in such a fun and tight knit group!

I can’t begin to imagine how much time and effort it must have taken to organise such a week, but I can thoroughly say it has been one of the most useful things I’ve ever done for my future. Whether it be learning the word ‘copywriter’ for the first time, or reminding myself of the beauty of podcasts, those five days will stick with me throughout!

It was especially interesting to listen to people like Imogen and Sasha who are just starting out to see how they got into their role and what more junior positions might look like.

There were many things that I enjoyed about Sookio Bootcamp, like all the tasks that were set and the talks, but the social aspect of the whole week was highly enjoyable and memorable. Everyone at Sookio and those who were involved with the Bootcamp was not only informative but also very easy going and friendly.

It was nice to be on Zoom for an hour and sometimes just a little longer, and then go off to complete tasks and take a break, to then be refreshed for the next Zoom session.

It was amazing because we learned on Zoom and then we practiced with the activities. It has been a complete experience. All the experience has been amazing I just can say thank you.

I liked the interactivity of the Bootcamp (…), in this format you’re regularly asked your opinion and your thoughts, even when it’s quiet at first I think that by asking everyone individually gives a voice to the shyest of the group too.

It’s been great to see just what these jobs entail and what employers are looking for when they’re hiring as I’m currently in job hunting mode and hope that the employers that I’m applying too are as welcoming and understanding as those at Sookio.

I have gained knowledge on what it’s like to work for an agency and what all the different roles entail. I have gained work for my portfolio with the creative promo. Also I have developed my skills in areas which I'm not as confident with, such as copywriting.

The Spotlights on the various Sookio members to provide insight into the work they do and hearing how they progressed in their careers to reach Sookio. I also enjoyed the various workshops on areas such as CV, Interview and Portfolio skills and how to boost your LinkedIn.

I feel more prepared for what to expect after I graduate and ready to structure my portfolio, CV and interview in a way that makes me stand out and how to ensure I hit the ground running on my career path.

A big thank you…

…to all the brilliant attendees of this year’s Bootcamp! And of course to the team who made it happen. See you next time!