Annie Beurman
Reporting correspondent
abeurma1@jccc.edu
For a student studying journalism or advertising, one of the best resources for learning about their future career comes from hearing from professionals in their field. On November 15, the college will be hosting People in Promotion — a panel for students interested in the field of advertising.
Assistant Professor of Journalism Gretchen Thum has organized the event every year for the past five years.
“I had started having the strategic communication people and advertising professionals just come out and talk to my classes, and then I realized there was more interest beyond just my journalism classes and my advertising students,” Thum said. “The idea is that anybody who is interested in a possible career in advertising, which is not just advertising students… they can come and hear about what a career in advertising is like and that might assist them as they plot out their own academic career path.”
The company sending panelists to speak is different each year. Past presentations have included companies like ROCK Creative and Morningstar Communications. This year Thum asked the advertising company VML to help with the event after doing a faculty internship with them over the summer.
“VML is one of the top ten ad agencies in the world so these are really global advertising people and there will be people from all different areas of advertising,” Thum said.
VML has many different clients, including Tic Tac, Gatorade, MasterCard and even the state of Tennessee. When they come to the college on Tuesday, they will be discussing their partnership with Wendy’s.
“It will be sort of a case of the Wendy’s account, these people all work on Wendy’s,” Thum said. “Since they’re a global ad agency, they advertise Wendy’s all over the world so they’ll be able to talk about some of the differences in advertising in other countries too.”
Thum claims students don’t need to be interested in advertising to come to the event. While it will help students in areas such as business, marketing and graphic design, she believes anyone who comes will enjoy it.
“I think it’s very helpful to students to make what they learn in the classroom relevant by hearing from professionals,” Thum said. “Even if they’re not thinking about a major or a definite career, advertising is so much a part of our lives.”
The event will take place on Tuesday, November 15th at 11:00 A.M. in GEB 233.