Ideas, Campaigns and Pitches: Newhouse Creative Advertising Students Intern at Top-tier Ad Agencies
This summer, three of the Newhouse School’s award-winning creative advertising students—two of them 2023 graduates—are interning at top-tier advertising agencies. Whether developing campaign ideas from scratch, creating mockups of project ideas or editing creative pitches, these talented students display and strengthen their skills while gaining experience and learning in high-profile workplaces alongside the industry’s top advertisers, creatives, marketers and more. Learn about the students below:
Avery Schildhaus ’24
Interning for: Ogilvy New York
The company: Ogilvy is a New York City-based advertising, marketing and public relations agency founded in 1948, and now has 132 locations in 83 countries. In 2023, the World Advertising Research Center named them the most creative agency network in the world for the third consecutive year.
Job title: Copywriter Intern
Day-to-day duties: Like most creative work, we spend a lot of time thinking of how to tell a great story through a good idea. You get tasked with the work they have on hand—for me, I’m on the Nationwide and Cartier accounts—and so you’re given a brief that outlines what the client wants, who we should be targeting and so on. So it’s my role to either come up with campaign ideas from scratch, or brainstorm a certain channel that could use some creative ideas. It’s very hands-on, which is great. I feel like I’ve been really well-prepped for all that’s come my way from everything that I’ve been assigned in my Newhouse classes. But now I get to see these things actually come to life in the real world!
What she hopes to accomplish at the internship: Ever since entering the advertising world, my main goal has been to gain experience from every single part of the industry, no matter how much I love being a creative. It’s so important to consider many different perspectives, especially in such a subjective field, and that means learning the ins and outs of what an agency looks like, both creatively, strategically, top-down and bottom-up. I’ve gotten a good sense of this from my classwork, too. I think everyone has those moments of, “Why am I taking this research class when I’m planning on doing graphic design?” or vice-versa, but it all has a purpose once you hit the real world: you’re trying to expand your tool belt as much as possible. So my number one priority is always to just learn from everyone, no matter what their title is. Everyone has something awesome to offer that helps me moving forward, for both my career and my personal growth.
Ryan Garret Conner ’23
Interning for: Cartwright
The company: Founded in 2020 by Keith Cartwright, an alumnus of Syracuse University’s College of Visual and Performing Arts, Cartwright is a new model marketing agency that navigates and guides brands to “build authentic connections with their consumers.” This year, the Venice, California-based company was named a standout agency on Ad Age’s 2023 Agency A-List.
Job title: Art Director Intern
Day-to-day duties: It’s a whole lot of concepting and a whole lot of Photoshop. When I get asked to help on a client project, it’s pretty hands-on — I have to be prepared to come up with ideas to throw in the deck and make mockups of those ideas so they’re pitch presentation ready. As an art director intern, I’ve had to do a lot of internal pitching as well. I’ve also helped here and there with updating Cartwright’s own branding, decks and social pages. It’s kind of a jack-of-all-trades position.
What sets this internship apart for him: Something that was pretty unique to this internship program was the fact that it was Cartwright’s first internship program ever. It’s an awesome opportunity, because it means that the other interns and I essentially get to pave the way for what being an intern at Cartwright means — and there’s not a whole lot of limitations. If there’s a project we’re interested in hopping on, we hop on it. If we come up with a dope idea, we get to explore it. Getting to be part of a new program really means we get to shape it how we want, and it’s been a fantastic experience with a wide variety of projects to work on. I’d also like to think that being part of the first intern class means we hold a special place in the people at Cartwright’s heart, which is great, too.
Jasmine Chin ’23
Interning for: TBWA\Chiat\Day NY
The company: TBWA\Chiat\Day is a prestigious advertising agency known for the famous Apple “1984” commercial, the Apple “Think Different” campaign and many more of Apple’s campaigns. Chiat/Day merged with TBWA in 1995.
Job title: Creative Resident (Copywriter) in the Young Bloods Residency Program. The program nurtures fresh perspectives in advertising, and serve as an incubator for diverse talent in the creative industry.
Day-to-day duties: I shadow internal creative meetings, write lines for existing campaigns, mock up social posts for clients, create storyboards for clients, create decks and edit creative pitches.
Her favorite part of the internship: I really love being able to work with a diverse team of creatives every day. It adds a lot more cultural perspective to the work we create and it’s nice to be able to bounce off people who have a lot of different experiences and perspectives.