Graduate people
In their own words, some WPP Fellows who have participated in the Program:
Alastair
‘Ambidextrous brains required.’ It’s a good line. Part invitation to come and explore, part challenge to show your breadth. I’m now in the third year of the scheme and it certainly hasn’t disappointed in its invitation: I’ve spent time with rigorous Government models of behaviour change and thinking hard about some complex systems, as well as with designers and creatives responsible for some truly exciting work.
As for the challenge? Well, that doesn’t look like stopping anytime soon.
I spent the first year at The Futures Company doing a healthy portion of different types of consumer insights work (focus groups, quantitative analysis, trends and scenarios work). The second was at Mindshare where I wasn’t happy with doing just one thing either: I was half communications strategist on a number of accounts including Volvo and Warburton’s and half media planner on the government’s ACT ON CO2 brand. This final year sees me at JWT, working on global pitches, Unilever’s Sunsilk brand in a digital planner role and helping the Worldwide Planning Director with some exciting internal and industry initiatives. This gave me an excuse for a bit of child’s play in helping with Guy’s Battle of Big Thinking win last November (Google ‘guy murphy battle of big thinking’).
Before the Fellowship I completed a DPhil in Pure Maths, and before that a degree in Maths and Philosophy, making me one of the favourite examples of the point that ‘there’s no such thing as a standard Fellow’. I have a personal interest in sustainability and, relatedly, am fascinated by behavioural economics and the power of communications to drive behaviour change.. [
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Alex
I didn’t go into marketing communications straight out of university. Back in the days before the economy turned to mush, when most of us seemed to want to work in investment banking, I used to write dictionaries. Yes, really.
I stopped, in the end, because I wanted to prove that I could do something other than write dictionaries until I was very, very old. I never had ambitions to work in marketing, associating it with clipboards, doorstepping and putting you down as a ‘don’t know’; but as a linguist I was (and am) fascinated by communication, and love the challenges involved in trying to be informative and interesting at the same time. So deciding to give up studying and talking about language for a living wasn’t easy, but I knew I wanted to push myself further and find something that would let me work on really interesting, complex problems. What that would be, though, I had no idea.
Fortunately, I was encouraged to apply to the Fellowship by someone who pointed out that all sorts of areas of marketing and communications involve taking complicated stuff and explaining it clearly and engagingly to people. The rounds of interviews were demanding and unpredictable, and gave me a glimpse of an organisation and a group of people that seemed as far from the clipboards and doorstepping image of marketing as I could imagine. So when the phone rang and I was offered the chance to join WPP as a Fellow, I said yes. And danced around the living room a bit, obviously.
So far I’ve worked as a trends analyst at The Futures Company in London and an account planner at Ogilvy in Cape Town: two very different positions in two very different markets. Both have offered the chance to work with brilliant people on varied and challenging projects. For all the benefits of the Fellowship (and there are lots), the best thing I can say is that I never get bored.. [
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ArwaI decided to apply for the WPP Fellowship after spending several interminable months in Brussels working as a lawyer on a case about ice-cream distribution. The case had been going on for 19 years and I’d started having nightmares about myself 20 years down the line, still stuck in a black suit in a grey office frantically sorting through piles of litigation on ice cream. It scared me. What appealed to me about the Fellowship, on the other hand, is that it’s not a linear, ladder-climbing training program. At no point on the Fellowship can you know exactly what you expect to be doing X years in the future. Instead you get three years of very different experiences in very different markets. I’ve spent my first rotation working as a planner at Ogilvy Advertising in London. I’ve had the opportunity to work on a range of projects – from global accounts like Unilever to smaller UK clients. And I haven’t done any work on ice cream! I’m now off to Sydney for my second rotation, which will be at the Campaign Palace. After that, who knows? There are so many possibilities open to you in the Fellowship – from where you work to what you work on – that boredom really isn’t an option.But by far the best thing about the Fellowship is the flexibility you have in structuring your three years. The Fellowship isn’t a one-size-fits-all program: it’s designed to be tailored around each individual – so that you get the best experience for your particular personality and abilities. Which means that at the end of three years you’re armed with an invaluable set of skills to do well, pretty much whatever you set your mind to. [
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ElisabethI, like all WPP Fellows, am unusual. My quirks have, throughout my life, been the guiding force behind the choices I have made. Take my college completion job hunt, for example. I wanted a job, but not a predictable future; I wanted something intellectual, but not academic; I wanted guidance, but with plenty of freedom; I wanted something cutting-edge, but in the Third World. Needless to say, every grad school, consulting firm, NGO and management position fell flat. I bemoaned this fact to a former boss over lunch one day. To my surprise, she laughed; “You’re just a WPP Fellow, aren’t you? They’re bright, fun, and wouldn’t have settled for any of those jobs either.” I didn’t sleep again until, two days later, my application was sent.Amongst Fellows, I am unusual in my disinclination for media and advertising, and my inclination for the Middle East. The Fellowship has not only managed my strengths and preferences, but has encouraged and helped to refine them.After two wonderful placements at HCHLV (which has since become The Futures Company) in London and at Added Value in New York, I am now finally settled at AMRB, a market research company in Cairo, where I hope to continue after the Fellowship. The work here is incredible – I’m personally managing accounts for clients like Coca-Cola and Unilever, running huge multinational studies across North Africa and the Middle East, and am every day challenged and supported by my smart, hardworking, and totally different co-workers and clients. As the only Westerner in the business, clients often ask me how I got here in the first place. Without the WPP Fellowship, I couldn’t have. [
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KiernanShortly after I graduated from Harvard, I started working for an international broadcast news organisation, expecting a world-class experience in fast-paced journalism. Instead I ended up behind a tiny desk uploading videos of obese Americans with electronically scrambled faces to play over scripts detailing how McDonald’s was adding an additional 800 or so calories to their value meals. It wasn’t long before I was browsing job postings in search of greener intellectual pastures.
Luckily WPP had recently made a presentation at my alma mater. I was immediately impressed with the Fellowship’s promise of challenging work assignments, creative engagement, and of course, world travel. This was a far cry from browsing stock footage of roly-poly burger munchers.
For my first rotation, I was lucky enough to land at OgilvyEntertainment in New York, a ground-breaking unit at Ogilvy & Mather, the world-class advertising powerhouse. OgilvyEntertainment specifically focuses on working with Ogilvy clients to produce branded content that both engages and entertains audiences. The unit is a unique animal: part production house, part ad firm, part writers’ room. Working at OgilvyEntertainment has been a hugely educative experience, particularly given the changing role of advertisers and brands in the new digital landscape. Brand-as-content-producer is a fast-growing new model, and plenty of Ogilvy’s global clients have called on our unit to create new ways they can leverage emerging technology to strengthen their brands. It’s an exciting and creative – if somewhat daunting – task that I would never be able to participate in without the Fellowship.
And to me, that is really what sets the Fellowship apart from other jobs available to recent University graduates: WPP provides its Fellows with incomparable opportunities usually reserved for industry veterans. WPP’s faith in the abilities of its young workers is unique among employers and results in an exceptional education for the Fellows.. [
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LauraIt's amazing what one can fit into the three short years of the Fellowship. Two continents, three disciplines, and dozens of top global brands have made for one incredible introduction to the communications industry.
I spent my first year of the Fellowship as a Planner at Ogilvy New York, working with global brands in the beverage, beauty, and professional services industries. I was introduced to the art and science of brand strategy, satisfying both my rational and creative selves as I brainstormed positioning concepts, analysed research data, and created mood boards.
My second year was spent at the London office of Landor, a global branding and design consultancy. The variety of projects I tackled as a Consultant served as a constant reminder that this industry is for me. With positioning, naming, packaging, brand architecture, and corporate identity projects on the table, there was always a new challenge to tackle, a new skill to learn.
Year three has brought me to Digit, an interactive communications and innovation agency in London. I’ve had the chance to put my strategy skills to work in the digital space, alongside some of the most forward-thinking people in the industry.
In each of these roles I’ve learned from some truly remarkable people. Because of the Fellowship, I’ve been given access to incredibly accomplished industry leaders who have challenged and supported me along every step of the way. I’ve also enjoyed opportunities and responsibilities I’m pretty sure are far above my qualification level, a reality that both thrills and intimidates me on a regular basis.
While the impending conclusion of the Fellowship is enough to make me nostalgic, thankfully I’ve been told that there’s no such thing as an ‘ex-Fellow’. When I leave the fold of this special scheme of ours, I’ll graduate into an incredibly accomplished global network of people who started just where I am now. And that’s an awfully exciting prospect. [
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MichaStraight out of university I had no concrete vision of my future, so I started looking for jobs that would somehow combine my passions of the arts, travel and culture. I was lucky to find the right mix in the world of communications. The more I read, the more I was fascinated by the ways that people, businesses and groups speak to each other and portray themselves.
I entered the Fellowship wanting to cast the net wide to give myself as broad a taste as possible of what the industry had to offer. Year One was at The Futures Company, a trends consultancy in London, where I was involved in long-term contextual thinking, using broader economic, social and technological shifts, alongside some really inspiring minds. Year Two was as a planner at Ogilvy, Beijing, where I had the chance to delve into that vast and rapidly evolving culture, at a time when all eyes are on China, focusing on beauty brands and young urban women. Year three involved another big move, as I relocated to JWT in Säo Paulo, Brazil, where I became familiar with another rising economic power with a cultural heritage that is globally admired and has a strong atmosphere of creativity. My focus there was on luxury brands in a developing market context, as well as work on a global FMCG brand repositioning.
After the Fellowship I entered into a challenge of a different sort, moving back to London to join Digit, an interactive design company. I had no previous experience of the digital sector, but I used the resilience and confidence the Fellowship had equipped me with to jump straight in. I established a planning team in a sector of the comms world that is packed with new ways of thinking about the world and about how brands and people interact with each other. But the relationship with WPP doesn’t stop with the Fellowship – I am still in regular contact with my mentor and Jon Steel for chats and advice, I still attend the Fellowship get-togethers to meet the others, listen to interesting speakers and keep involved with the wider network. Even more importantly, I recently spent one month in Brazil working with an NGO, all courtesy of WPP, which funds three ex-Fellows a year to go there. One of the most fantastic experiences I have ever had, I worked with the NGO team to launch a campaign about street children to raise awareness in the local community and help fundraising. It’s just another reminder that the Fellowship is about building your career, not just your first job.
This industry is crowded, competitive and constantly changing. I believe it is really important to develop your own style and point of view about what makes good communications. WPP gave me the opportunities, support and confidence I needed to fully explore that. The Fellowship offers the perfect chance to discover, to plunge head-first into three different environments, an invaluable first step in working out where to go next. [
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