Travel For FOUR

Over the last week, I’ve spent a great deal of time and brain power thinking and considering whether it’s best to continue with the agency topic (money), or if the topic is most important for a future in account planning (love). After much consideration, I finally decided to focus on a topic that would influence the rest of my career. From the previous post, I chose love.

Believing that my client contact would return to the office (from paternity leave) on Tuesday, I sent a probe to see when he would be available for a short chat. Sadly (for me, not him), he had decided to take another week off and will return to the office next Monday. So, today, I decided to bite the bullet and put in a call to the MD (Don’t worry, it was authorized. She’s my secondary contact).

Of course, there’s a business justification for the change in topic as the themes around customer relationship management and partnership are well established. Ultimately, the partnership topic would deliver less value for them and for me as there are 2 basic reasons (from secondary research and experience) that agencies lose clients: erosion of the account relationship and lack of confidence in creative strategy. And in order to promote partnership, you have to increase the client’s PERSONAL investment in the relationship (ie upon account set-up require lengthy meetings with the corporate marketing staff and high-level employees, go through a research phase to gather data, but also to deepen their involvement and confidence, etc.)

So. I had prepared my case and made the call. As a result, the MD’s quite keen on a broader version of the new topic I proposed and I’m set to meet with she and the agency’s creative and interactive directors to discuss further next week. Of course, I would be thrilled to work with the firm AND move in a direction that would prepare me for employment after the program. Perhaps you can have both love and money? How nice it would be to contribute to the G&K European travel fund after nearly a year of being out of the ranks as a full-time student. Fingers and toes crossed, breath held…and prayers wouldn’t hurt 🙂

Loyal readers will know that in April, I was offered the opportunity to work with a notable local advertising agency on a paid business research project. I tentatively accepted pending a formal monetary offer and signed contract. The topic of my research would focus on the client/agency relationship, identifying ways to increase client firms’ commitment to their ad and marketing firms during the early phases of their working relationship, allowing firms to maintain those relationships long-term. I selected this topic based on my previous interest in continuing in the account management vein.
I met with my academic supervisor last Monday and was pleased to learn that he served as the account planner on huge brands like Mars. He worked in the ad world for many years before settling in to an academic career at Cass. And, as I recently settled on what type of positon I’ll go for upon program completion, I was thrilled to learn that he once served in the role that I aspire to. Knowing this, he suggested an alternate topic for my research: Low involvement cognitive processing and a study of semiotics.

To add food to the fodder, I finally received confirmation of the paid project stipend last Thursday and feel that the modest amount to be paid pales in comparison to an opportunity to devote 3 months of full brain power to a topic of my choice–positioning me for the career path that I’m most excited about: account planning (not account management). While the project with the ad firm would pay a small stipend, this new, unpaid, self-determined topic would allow me freedom to study a topic that I find intriguing–a topic which would place me in a more attractive position when interviewing for account planning positions.

So the question becomes. Love or Money…I think I’ll stick with my pattern and go for love. If I’m happy and heading in a direction that I’m passionate about, the money will come, right? And common logic would say that the flexibility afforded by my unpaid research topic would allow me to more easily subdivide my time between job hunting and research. Then, the only question that remains is when to begin “real” work this fall…that makes my head hurt.

G surprised me with tickets to the (sold out) Chelsea Flower Show yesterday. This is an event in Chelsea (one of London’s most posh districts) and, as you can imagine considering the English’s love for gardening, is THE place to be this weekend. The event makes the Top 10 list of things not to miss in London.And the show exceeded expectations. Landscape designers from around the UK flock to Chelsea to install not only plants on their tiny plots, but also to install buildings and infrastructure. They literally move earth and create impressive outdoor spaces within a week of the show.

Following our visit to Japan last year, G and I decided that we would like a Japanese or Asian-inspired garden for our next home…granted it may not agree with our Italian villa :), but who says you can’t have the best of both worlds. This was a great event to gather ideas from…click here to gather ideas/see additional photos from the show.

We had some particularly good weather one weekend about a month ago. However, K and I were sick that weekend, so we stayed in most of the time and didn’t get a chance to fully enjoy the sunshine. I figured it was spring time, the weather is turning around from the winter and we’ll have plenty more good weather weekends to follow. Then is rained for the next four weeks.

Exasperated by the seemingly never ending rain, K exclaimed to one of her classmates, “What’s up with this weather?” To which he replied, “I know. This is the warmest nicest April we have ever had.” Eek! That makes you miss North Carolina.
Along the same lines, my co-workers were giving me a hard time last month that I wasn’t experiencing a “proper London summer” because it had been so nice. So they took pleasure in the fact that I got a dose of it the last few weeks.

As a result of this, K and I decided that we would not pass up another good weather weekend — even if we are ill. This weekend’s weather is shaping up nicely and we are looking to enjoy it with some garden tours and a bit of gardening on our balcony (we have the flower boxes, we just have to figure out how to hang them up). Unfortunately, when I got up this morning, I wasn’t feeling the best, but I am determined to push through to get my good weather!