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The Best Advertising Internship In The U.S. as Ranked by The Interns

15/05/2018
Advertising Agency
New York, United States
139
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StrawberryFrog interns aka 'Tadpoles' Colin Kreutzberg, Sara Björkegren, Ariana Shier, Victoria Vergara and Seona Kim reveal their intern experience

It’s internship season, and we wanted to write this article to talk about the best internship in advertising.

We are the new blood, the new mad women and men-in-training who are scouring America for the perfect first-advertising position.

We all applied for internships at StrawberryFrog, and although they had a long list of interns, we made the cut and made the team. Interns are a team here- more of a family, actually.

We have interned at other firms, and this was by far the best experience we had. 

“While many ad agencies have unpaid programs for cheap labour, StrawberryFrog pays its interns money??? Fifteen dollars per hour, so StrawberryFrog is a genuine platform for leaping into the advertising world," Colin Kreutzberg says, intern at StrawberryFrog who is now fully employed by the firm as Junior Strategist. “StrawberryFrog calls its program TadPoles, and it’s been an overwhelmingly positive experience for me. When I took the StrawberryFrog internship, I also had offers from the big corporate agencies, but this was the absolutely right decision especially as I wanted to work with their strategy group, which is top shelf."

“I worked on real clients from day one," says Sara Björkegren, who also worked in the strategy group. "It’s a real community here. Food, beer and wine are free. That may seem insignificant, but it speaks to the strong bond we all feel from day one to the management here who are fantastic as well as to each other. While the work was challenging, I had to develop strategic ideas and present them to real clients myself in a board room- imagine that! What I loved the most was being trusted by the management to do this. It was amazing, actually, and genuinely satisfying to know that your work matters than doing some irrelevant work that’s boring and insignificant. I found myself smiling every day that I worked in the Frog pond (what the StrawberryFrogs call their office), and it was incredible to truly love what you do while you grow and learn. Ultimately, I was given the opportunity to really make my mark and stand out among a very senior and very cool leadership team. What more could an intern ask for? It was so much fun.”

“It was the ideal internship for me,” says Ariana Sher, our Strategy and New Business Intern. "Dream brands to work on including SunTrust, Coca Cola, Pernod Ricard. From the very first day, I felt as if I was part of a very special frog family. I worked in several departments of the firm and also worked on SunTrust, while StrawberryFrog developed and produced the national campaign for the 2018 Winter Olympic Games and got to see all parts of account. I helped out with planning, strategy, and creative coordination. I put together competitive decks and social media recommendations - I was able to present these to StrawberryFrog’s senior management. The new StrawberryFrog office in the Empire State Building is amazing. I was never treated as an intern. I was a member of the team from my first day. I've never done a menial piece of work and have had the opportunity to influence projects, especially when it came to research, which I really love. I got to work with all levels of the firm including Scott Goodson, the Founder of StrawberryFrog. I also worked with all departments and everyone was so amazing and open to teaching me about the firm and what they do. The other interns were so smart and bright and together we had so much fun. The whole firm is just wonderful to be around."

“It’s been an incredible experience," says Junior Designer Victoria Vergara. "I started as an art director intern and then transitioned into the design team working with top talent and an amazing group of people across the company and even the top management of the firm. Interns at StrawberryFrog benefit from a two-way learning – we get a chance to experience what the next generation of clients are looking for and at StrawberryFrog with their focus on cultural movement that means having the unique opportunity to work on something meaningful in a hands-on way. In the future, the shining stars of the marketing world will be among the interns who went through this program at StrawberryFrog. I went to their website, searched up the TadPole program, applied and was given the opportunity. And I haven’t looked back."

Newest TadPole, Seona Kim, says, “Well, I have had the opportunity as a design intern to work with one of the finest designers in the United States. I was given real work in the design group from my first day- really interesting and challenging work. I was recognised for my contribution by the entire firm and called out in public, which made me feel incredibly happy and a genuine contributor to the firm. StrawberryFrog truly cares about me and the other interns' professional development. Having the name StrawberryFrog on my resume will make a difference for me. Most importantly, my input was listened to, and it had actual impact on the look and feel of the communications and content."

We interviewed our very own senior group planning director, Ashley Connors, to get her perspective on what value interns have in this industry. Ashley wholeheartedly believes that interns are the future! She says, “They are the next generation, and often the exact target age group many of our clients are looking to connect with. They bring an entirely new, fresh perspective to the agency. At StrawberryFrog, we learn as much from our interns as they learn from us. We value youth and a new way of seeing the world and thinking just as much as we value experience. All of our interns have brought something new to our agency and to each of us and we're not only grateful for that, but better because of it.”

We also asked Ashley what she thinks modern interns look for in an employer. “Experience, perspective, adventure, opportunity,” she emphasised, and we couldn’t agree more. “I think they have high standards and they should! It's no secret that today's student and intern pool are more qualified than previous generations. When I was an intern back in 2000, I didn't have access to the world of information and opportunity the kids today do. Social media and digital landscape has exploded and created so much opportunity and space to create. I'm always amazed at the experience, both in terms of life experience and work experience that a 20 and 21-year-old intern comes to us with today.”

When we asked Ashley how other agencies can make themselves more attractive to the brightest and the best, her response was, “Make it as real as possible. Give interns responsibility, trust and access to what the job is really like. Let them participate in meetings, hold them accountable for real work and ideation, believe in them and their skills! We have a strong internship program here at StrawberryFrog called the Tadpole program. It's run and operated like a department at the agency, and we make sure that our interns work in real life collaborative situations, just like they would in a full-time position. An internship is all about giving interns a real taste of what that career path would look like, so we try to replicate and show the full monty as much as possible.”

Let’s highlight the fact that we get paid as interns! This is extremely rare not only in this industry, but in MANY industries. So why does StrawberryFrog care? If it’s not essential, then why do they do it? So, we asked Ashley. “It's not always essential,” she responded, “but if you're in a position to, I believe you should. Let's face it- living life gets expensive. We try to take as much of the burden off the interns shoulders by paying them, so they can stress less about life's expenses and instead focus on learning and experiencing all that NYC and the internship have to offer.”

There you have it! StrawberryFrog is the best advertising internship in the U.S. 

Credits
Work from StrawberryFrog
ALL THEIR WORK