Co-op placement is a great starting point for a future in marketing
We are pleased to share this guest blog from Leo Jett, our Co-op student from GCVI.
I’ve always been passionate about marketing – from Apple to Nike and Ikea to Starbucks, I am curious about how companies distinguish themselves from their competitors and catch their customer’s eye. For this reason, marketing has been my favourite subject in high school. I loved learning about branding, market segmentation, and unique selling propositions.
This Spring it all came to life. I had the amazing opportunity to fulfill my grade 11 co-op placement at The Letter M Marketing. I couldn’t believe the real-life responsibilities I had at The Letter M! Over these last four months, I’ve built meaningful relationships and had the chance to contribute to marketing campaigns from the ground up.
One of the best things about The Letter M is the people. The team always made me feel welcome. I’ve participated in weekly “scrums” (that’s a staff meeting where we update each other on our lives and current projects), had one-on-one meetings with account managers, and even Doug MacMillan, company President. My co-workers made me feel welcome in ways that I didn’t expect. This meant a lot to me because it showed that they were excited to have me join their team and to get to know me better. My main contact, Stacey McCarthy, was always available to answer any questions and provided great feedback on my work. We spent hours on teams working on logos, market research, social media posts, and blogs. Sadly as my co-op term came to and end, I finally had the opportunity to meet the full staff in person at The Letter M at our team lunch. I felt so connected to everyone because of all the time we spent together online.
My favourite part of this placement has been the opportunity to contribute in meaningful ways to a huge number of different projects. In my first week, I was able to attend an event to celebrate The Bookshelf and its customers’ commitment to the Home For Good campaign to solve homelessness. From then on, I created logo concepts for organizations and companies, learned how to conduct a search engine optimization analysis, made social media posts for Our Food Future, conducted market research for The Guelph Film Festival, wrote and edited blogs, and more. We had great discussions about the use of artificial intelligence and explored how it could be used ethically in marketing. Every single day was unique. It was so exciting to see my work actually used in campaigns and presentations! Everything I learned in school I have been able to see in practice. I have a much better understanding of the field and what a career in marketing might look like. I have been able to do all this from coffee shops and my kitchen table. I learned how to manage my time more effectively. Much of the work was independent, some of the projects were urgent. It felt like a real job.
One of the biggest takeaways from this whole experience is that you get what you put in. During my time at The Letter M, I have taken the feedback I received from my supervisors to build and expand my skills and knowledge in the marketing field. I am most proud of myself because I have produced excellent work and have seen some of it get launched to the public. It meant a lot to me that as I was learning, I was also making a significant contribution at The Letter M. For these reasons, I highly recommend other students take a co-op if they can. I am so grateful to The Letter M for taking the chance on me and giving me this awesome opportunity!
