Georgetown MBA Internship Diary: Anne

Time management skills...

...are key to surviving an internship.  Between meeting managers on other brands (I'm interviewing Campbell's as much as they're interviewing me), shadowing my assistant brand manager on the monthly volume build process and going to New York for photo shoots, I've barely been at my desk to work on my project.

As I mentioned in previous posts, I'm working on two projects- a competitive analysis of College Inn (to showcase my analytical skills) and new item launch strategy for the brand.  Since the competitive analysis is considered the smaller of the two, the timeline to complete it was shorter-- I presented today, in fact!  It was a lower key presentation than the strategic one will be, really more of a conversation than a presentation.  My brand and cross-functional team members attended and we had a great discussion about College Inn (the 2nd biggest single-brand player in the broth category) and how they (and we) will react to Progresso's broth launch later this summer.

Outside of my projects, I've been shadowing my ABM on the monthly volume build process.  The volume build is the projected shipments/sales for each channel, as well as an analysis of sales from the prior period.  It's a huge part of a first-year ABM's responsibilities, so it's interested to get a taste of what the position is like.  Additionally, summer is the big advertising season for the company, so I attended two shoots in NYC-- one for the print ad for our new stock and one for the food for the TV commercials.  It's been busy, but fun! 

Campbell Culture

One of the things that attracted me to Campbell's is their strong culture.  A lot of it is company-led, but what really impressed me was the level of involvement from the employees.  In the fall, the men of Campbell's participate in a mustache and beard contest, complete with costumes and fashion show to raise funds for prostate cancer research.

Last week, a group, (mostly ladies, including me, one brave man and a couple of little girls) took part in a ponytail drive to collect hair for the Pantene Beautiful Lengths program.  To make the event more interactive, all the participants took 'before' pictures, uploaded them to a virtual hairstyle sites and created celebrity looks.  Posters were made and posted in the room where the haircuts took place.  Attendees purchased tickets for the opportunity to vote on which celebrity haircut they liked best for each cuttee.  We raised nearly $1100 for Breast Cancer.org  and donated over 100 inches of hair in less than an hour.  Pretty impressive!

Here are my before and after shots:

Meetings, meetings and more meetings

My first week at Campbell's was a blur of meetings, meet and greets and trainings and it doesn't look like it's slowing down anytime soon!  The internship program is very well organized and it's clear that everyone there wants us to succeed.  I’m part of an intern class of 16, including students from Michigan, University of Maryland, Darden, Rutgers, and, of course, 3 Georgetown MBAs!  Our first day was spent in orientation and basic Lotus Notes training.  The Campbell’s culture is fairly meeting intensive, so the calendar feature is crucial.  In addition to my fellow interns, I will be working on a team of three, with my manager and two assistant brand mangers, one of whom will be my coach throughout the summer.

After orientation, I had the opportunity to sit down with my manager and learn more about my projects.  Each intern is assigned one large project to be presented at the end of the summer, a mid-term project and will also shadow an ABM on the monthly volume forecasting.  My long-term project is to analyze and suggest the long-term new product strategy for Swanson.  Shorter-term, I’m doing a competitive analysis of College Inn.  We have so many tools at our disposal for data gathering and analysis, it’s just a matter of decided what information I need and where to find it!

Busy Start to the Summer

My summer is off to a busy start, with moving and starting my new internship.  For the next ten weeks, I will be working as a brand management intern for Campbell’s USA, specifically on the Swanson Broth and Stock brand.   

Since my pre-MBA experience is in grocery retail and marketing, most recently with Whole Foods Market, a position in consumer product marketing is a great fit.  I first became aware of Campbell’s at the CareerQuest conference early last fall, when one of my classmates introduced me to a company representative.  He spoke so highly of the company, their strategy, and most importantly, the people, that I was sold. 

From that initial contact at CareerQuest, I received an invitation to interview at the National Association of Hispanic MBA’s conference later in the fall.  My offer, along with several others to Georgetown MBA students, resulted from interviews at NSHMBA.  Long story short, there are three of us representing Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business as Campbell’s this summer!

My goals for the summer are:

• To gain initial exposure to brand management and decide whether it’s what I want to do long-term.
• To strengthen my quantitative analytical skills and presentation skills.
• To meet as many people in the company on as many brands as possible, to get a complete sense of Campbell’s as a company and brand management as a career.

In my next blog, I’ll give an overview of my summer project and what the first week has been like. So stay tuned!