Zeno from the Deep End

Student Emily Morrison took a break from her studies at Leeds University to get a taste of life in Zeno’s London office. Here’s what she really thought of it.

My first day at Zeno was always going to be slightly intimidating.

Firstly I had never navigated the London Underground before on my own and also had never tried to navigate my way around the city. Luckily I managed not to get lost on either occasion, but being nervous about the Underground stopped me from being nervous about my first day at work as I didn’t have time to think about it.

Well, that was until I arrived outside the building half an hour early with not much of an idea of what to expect. This was my first real internship for a global company and I did not want to mess it up! I thought it would be really intimidating walking into an office where I didn’t know anyone and I wasn’t entirely sure what it is I was going to be doing, but when I walked in, I knew I would be fine.

I felt like I was chucked into the deep end on the first day. Being asked to phone newspaper picture desks to find out photographer details that they recommended was probably one of the most nerve-wracking things I have had to do. However, after picking up and putting the phone down three times before having the courage to ring someone, I got into the role of things. I actually began to enjoy ringing different people and talking to them, apart from when they decided to be rude and unhelpful.

Thankfully, this came in handy on my second day when I had to ring trade publications to find out when their copy deadline dates were if we were looking for coverage of a consumer activation campaign. I felt as though I was doing something important, and was being given real jobs to do, rather than being sent to make cups of tea and coffee all the time like some of my other friends who are doing internships for big global companies. All of this gave a great insight into how press releases work, as well as how trade publications run. It took a while to get my head around the jargon used, but I got there in the end, although I may have had to Google what a media list was. Oops! But it was all part of the experience.

When I wasn’t working on the beauty campaign, I did some research for a drinks company and an entertainment brand that is currently trying to break into the UK market. Looking into the competitors meant researching the most popular products being sold in the UK and seeing where the new brand could match or even outperform it rivals in with editorial prominence. One thing I can say about my time at Zeno is that I now know exactly where to look for specific information on consumer audiences and the right media to reach them. My research skills have improved a lot, and I already thought they were pretty good after spending the majority of my time researching for my course. But when you’re given a deadline and you need to find out as much information as possible, you learn the quickest routes and the best places.

One of things I found the most interesting was learning about the new campaign that Zeno was doing for a consumer brand. While I can’t give away any of the details, it was great to learn about how Zeno was applying its fearless approach and incorporating this into the campaign planning. I never realised how much work or how many stages were involved in such a stunt! The media list alone which I helped to compile was huge. Doing research into previous PR stunts and other news stories to help gather a list of journalists who had previously covered stories in the sector meant that I was reading a wide range of newspapers, blogs and online information sites every day. I think if you asked me anything about any of the big storylines that have happened over the last two weeks, I feel I would be a bit of an expert.

These last three weeks have been really exciting and also really informative. It’s helped me realise what exactly is involved in PR because I have been doing real tasks that have been given me a proper idea about what you have to do, rather than being taught in a lecture theatre what you have to know about PR.

I’ve loved every moment that I’ve been working here at Zeno. There have been moments of intense work and some quiet moments, but the people who work here have made these three weeks work well worth it. Being given different things to do every day kept things new and interesting, and I don’t think there was a single moment when I was bored or felt unhelpful (although this could just be my perspective and I could be completely wrong!). Everyone was really welcoming and helpful, and being able to spend some time with everyone outside of the office during my first week after some of the team had done a huge pitch and deserved a drink, made me a lot more relaxed and a lot more comfortable about working for a global  company.