Week 3: The AW Team
It’s hard to believe I’m already entering my third week of my internship at Addison Whitney. It feels like it’s flying by already. My days at the job definitely don’t drag on, and I think that’s because of the great people and the fact that they keep me busy!
Addison Whitney is a global branding firm that specializes in verbal and visual branding, brand strategy, and market research. The company was founded in 1991, but was acquired by Inventiv Health in 2007, who is their parent company. AW has three locations in the US and three outside the US.
Many things go into building a brand, as I am learning everyday, but I am realizing how important market research is in the process (but I may be a little biased). Market research is crucial in branding because effective research and analysis validates a brand vision and gives a client confidence in a brand’s power and success. And the research pros at AW are also crucial to the process! The market research team in Charlotte, NC consists of four people: Michelle, Lee, Ben, and Kat. They’ve all been great for the past two weeks and have really calmed my nerves, and they probably don’t even know it! Coming into the internship, I was fairly nervous about being surrounded by experienced employees, especially since I had only done psychological research, and never market. But, the team quickly made me feel at home and as if I was an actual employee. I’ve worked the most with Michelle, since she is my supervisor and she’s been my mentor/teacher the past two weeks. She is extremely helpful and has been there to answer all my questions. She is also very honest about everything, which I love. I’m excited to spend the rest of the summer learning from Michelle, I think we have a lot in common so I think the internship will be informative and fun! I’m also just extremely happy I have the opportunity to work with the whole team. I’m hoping to be able to spend some more time with Lee, Ben, and Kat in the upcoming weeks.
I think the highlight of my week was programming a survey on Qualtrics. I have worked with Qualtrics before in the Psych Department, but it was never programming. Michelle told me before we started on Qualtrics that programming is a good general skill to have, and I totally agree, so I am thrilled I got to learn a little bit of it! Although it was pretty difficult and confusing at times, I started to get the hang of it after a while and that felt so great. I couldn’t figure some things out and got stuck, but hey I’m still learning! I’m looking forward to diving into more tasks this week.
