USC in NYC
USC in NYC - Publicis Blog, May 2019
Publicis Media is based on trust, talent and transformation. On our last day we visited Zenith, which is under the Publicis holding company. We spoke to Zenith’s VP of Video Placement Sadia Rashid, who took us through what all Publicis has to offer its employees throughout its various agencies. From diversity committee-like teams representing LGBT+, POC and more to YouXplore, a two-week exchange program that sends employees across the globe, Publicis agencies are a miraculous place for young professionals to fine-tune their skills and experience in the world of advertising. Publicis agencies also do a great deal of giving back. Employees are given time off to go into their communities and give back, and the agencies also do a lot of pro bono work for nonprofits. One that particularly stuck out to me was the Alzheimer’s Association. Having started a chapter of The Youth Movement Against Alzheimer’s at USC this past school year and now working for the Leeza Gibbons Memory Foundation, Alzheimer’s is a cause near and dear to my heart. Seeing an organization this big – with over 80,000 employees internationally – advocating and advancing a cause showed me that all of my work the past two years with nonprofits and volunteerism is meaningful outside of an academic space.
Zenith believes advertising is more than just sharing the message and should be a genuine return on investment for their clients. They work intensely on messaging and media placement and value understanding their client’s customers. Effective advertising requires the right message, and the right place and the right time. Zenith works diligently on their message calendar to advance their sales and general brand awareness. Steven Carter and Alex McNutly (a Gamecock alum) took us through a “Strategy 101” presentation. The two strategists examined their account with Verizon they call VM1. From reviewing their Pride Month campaigns to military campaigns, we gained real insight as to how advertising planning works and the process of buying television advertising space. Being a public relations major, I have gained a greater understanding for what the teams I one day will be collaborating with do. The most valuable insight Zenith gave to our group was their future expectations of the advertising space. They hope to further advance personalized and interactive advertisements and to tap into the growing world of podcasting as well. With media being a constantly changing landscape, it is crucial to be able to look ahead and prepare for whatever could come next.
We ended our visit with Caitlin Carr, the campus recruitment manager, and Frances Reavis, a more recent hire of the company. They covered Zenith’s media training program that all employees must go through. Zenith hires around 50 new employees in blocks in January and June each year. The media training program is a full-time paid rotational program that introduces their new hires to every aspect of the agency. At the end of the program employees are offered permanent full-time positions and have already developed their network in the company of friends and mentors. Zenith and other Publicis agencies are spectacular places to start professional careers for recent graduates.
Capstone Scholars: University of South Carolina Leadership Dinner 2019.
Us Against Alzheimers 2019 Summit
I cannot express my gratitude enough for being invited to the Us Against Alzheimer's National Summit. Two days of influential panels and one day on The Hill asking our representatives to make a change! I met over 20 amazingly driven and inspiring college students & grads and built friendships I could not be more grateful for. I am so excited to dedicate my work to this cause and be apart of the movement making change in the perception, and treatment of Alzheimer's. This disease is something so much bigger than any of us & something we all should be working to cure. I feel so blessed to have met such strong and influential female role models like The Honorable U.S. Senator Susan Collins, and the Editor & Chief of Women's Day Magazine Susan Spencer. The future is female and I feel inspired. Thank you George Vradenburg for your dedication to this cause and for your support of our Youth Movement, it means the world to be working with you to make a future worth remembering!
If you're interested in finding out more about these amazing movements and supporting them check out their websites here:
YMAA-http://www.theyouthmovement.org/#/
UsAgainstAlz-https://www.usagainstalzheimers.org/
Palmetto Place Service Project 2018
This event with Palmetto Place Children's Shelter was put together during my time on the Capstone Service Team. While it was a short 3 hour service event and a group of just 15 student volunteers, we got an unimaginable amount done! This was by far one of the largest events I have ever put together and I personally organized the donation and collection of all the materials for the project. This all couldn't have been possible without the gracious community donors like Casey's Fireworks, Rose-Talbert Paints, Capital Supply of Columbia Inc, & Vulcan Materials Company.
One gracious donors Casey’s couldn’t give enough and ended up hosting a follow up service event with the residents of Palmetto Place featuring hot chocolate & shaved ice and showed them how to plant flowers. For this event I made some social media graphics and for following fundraising events done by Casey’s.
Capstone Scholars in the Netherlands
EDUC 360 - working in partnership with the Anne Frank House and its expert staff to explore human rights discussions in Amsterdam and the Hague. May 2018
It is important to note this program has challenged me to question and evaluate justice under closer inspection. At first upon reviewing the tribunals and hearing talks from Mjat and Maya, our two different refugee guest speakers I really felt hopeless and thought that justice is something written down on paper but never applied in life. There’s two sides of a story for a reason and I believe that finding balance between two cultures, peoples, or opinions is where true justice lies. I feel more aware and sympathetic towards the other side in every issue we have talked about and therefor understand why justice may not be met in so many situations. Another issue with justice is how long it takes, years and years for basic sentencing and years for reparations to be put into place. In the cases of genocide, I do not believe true justice can be met. For a person(s) to have the ability to hate and kill for no other reason than a different god, skin tone or political affiliation is a problem beyond human rights and beyond justice. This is why I thought justice was impossible to find and some unattainable idea. It wasn’t until the Anne Frank house that my definition and opinions of justice shifted. After going through the annex, I had so many emotions but none of them we’re mad or upset, I felt at peace and really connected with what we were learning about. This is the moment for me that I really saw that justice can mean so many different things and that justice is not found in the courtroom.
Obviously, the story of Anne Frank is a hard one to put yourself in her shoes however this is the uniqueness of her diary. Anne allowed all of us through a window into her mind and although it was shared upon such sad circumstances I believe the memorialization of the Anne Frank house, the popularity of her story, and her fathers never ending push for inclusion and awareness is justice for Anne. I believe now, while reviewing justice it is important to understand the different levels and types of justice. Some justice is punishment focused others are reparation based, in Anne’s case the justice of her memorialization is honestly the irony that she desired to become a writer or journalist and although she lost her life to do so she still did it. To this day she inspires millions of other people to write, document and to be the change. I think real and fair justice for Anne would be a change in history and it would be her surviving the concentration camps. Unfortunately, sad and unfair things happen like Anne’s death. I think Anne herself as the figure she has become opens up the door to conversations about diversity, discrimination, adolescence, and the reality of who was persecuted by the Nazi’s. I think people are often desensitized to death with modern technology and mass media but with specific stories of people like Anne Frank she serves as a reminder that these were children and normal, good people that lost their lives for nothing. Therefore, I think in a way Anne Frank has found her justice through Otto Franks hard work and dedication to saving and sharing her story.
The only way justice like Anne’s functions is through conversation and through awareness. There is something to be said about reading the diary but something entirely different to see the annex in real life. In order to actively take part in justice I believe it is just a matter being knowledgeable in world issue concerning social justice and human rights. As US students it is important for all of us to pop the USA bubble of influence and focus so many of us, even myself lived in prior to this trip. Moving forward with the idea of my vision of justice and my role in the vision, I cannot wait to head home and help every cause I can.