Benefits from Taking Campaigns Already?

This post is dedicated to the students about to present their campaigns (tomorrow) at Kent State… 

 All PRKenters (a.k.a. students in Kent State’s public relations sequence) heard horror stories about senior seminar/campaigns, which I wrote about here, from the time we entered the major.  All of those who had gone before us had the same words of warning.  It is the hardest class you will ever take.  You will either learn to love or hate the classmates in your group by the time it is all over.  You will stop sleeping, eating and having fun during that semester.  All of your life will be sucked away until the moment after your group presents to the client and it is all over.

I’ll admit under no uncertain terms that it was by far the most time-consuming and intense class I ever took.  I was completely immersed in my client, and my social life did disintegrate in front of my eyes.  It seemed that a giant weight had been lifted from my shoulders when I was finally done and able to glimpse my ‘A’ through a film of happy tears.

 Obviously I’m not quite over it, and based on recent events, I’m glad for that.  Although I heard a number of students complain that it wasn’t really a necessary or real world experience for them because they didn’t plan to go into agency work where they would ever have to campaign for a client, I always disagreed on the premise that it was still a class that forced you to use what you had (hopefully) learned throughout the course of your major.  At the very least you had to work through each step of the RACE formula and appreciate in some small way its importance and significance.

The only problem with campaigns is really beyond the control of the classroom exercise, and that is that most people don’t get to go through another experience like that for some time.  Even if you enter an agency, you begin as an assistant account executive or maybe account executive, and while you might have some input or hand in helping with upcoming proposals for new business, you don’t have the bulk of the research, strategizing, writing and presenting trusted to you.  That is usually the task of a senior executive or account planner with years of experience.

All of that being said, I was really excited when I was offered the opportunity to help write a new business proposal last week at work.  I had been a part of the preliminary research and writing, but I was actually asked to compile everything I had been working on so I could plan and write a portion of the final proposal.  I probably didn’t come off as being excited when I received the opportunity, but mostly because I was stunned.  I didn’t see an opportunity like this presenting itself for years.  But the rationale– hopefully in addition to my hard work, understanding of the client and attention to detail– was that I had just come out of a class where I had spent almost six months immersed in the same setting.  I had just finished researching, planning, writing and presenting a campaign, so why not give me the opportunity to use that knowledge, which is so fresh in my mind, at the beginning of my career rather than ask me to wait until years later?

 I don’t actually know whether or not it is common practice for recent hires to have this chance, but from what I’ve heard, the answer is no.  I’m grateful I had this chance, personally and professionally, and of course it helped to have the reassurance that campaigns really did provide me with some directly associated post-graduate benefits.  I can’t wait for our client’s decision, for better or for worse.

 It’s the experience, for me, that counts.