Julia Spreng is a member of the UGA Equestrian team. She is studying advertising through Grady. In this blog, Julia describes her summer internship with MELT in Atlanta.
This summer I was given the opportunity to be part of an eight week internship program at MELT, a marketing agency in Atlanta. There were over 500 applicants for this internship and I was chosen to be one of the 35 interns in the MELT intern program, known as MELT University, or “MELT U”. During the course of the program, we were introduced to over 50 executives from highly respectable companies such as Coca-Cola, Learfield, IMG, and CBS sports, who came to speak to our intern class. Each speaker shared their career journey which brought them to where they are now. The speakers were from a variety of career fields, which gave us exposure to industries we were perhaps not familiar with before.The speaker series provided us with great networking opportunities and allowed for us to ask one on one questions about their careers, which I found to be very helpful. Throughout the internship we helped create a Vlog series, which taught us how to compose and edit videos. Along with the speaker and Vlog series, MELT U helped launch MELT’s very own podcast, “The Struggle is Real.” The podcast gave the speakers the opportunity to share what they wanted our main take aways of their talks to be and gave us the chance to share what we personally thought was most valuable as well.
Throughout the internship we toured several venues like the Mercedes-Benz stadium, SunTrust Park, Hi-Rez, and College Football Hall of Fame, in order to see first hand how companies such as Coca-Cola marketed their brand around each venue. To conclude the internship, we utilized the knowledge we obtained from the speakers and from the venue tours to separate into groups and complete a capstone project. Each group of interns was asked to pitch a marketing plan of how Coca-Cola should market for the upcoming Super Bowl in Atlanta to multiple Coca-Cola executives.
I am so grateful to have gotten the opportunity to be a part of MELT U this summer. I was exposed to numerous hands-on learning opportunities that have taught me so much about the world of advertising. I truly believe that this internship helped prepare me for what to expect post graduation world has given me a competitive edge that can’t be obtained in the classroom alone. I look forward to expanding on everything I learned this summer and continue to take advantages of the networking opportunities The Georgia Way and the University of Georgia has to offer.
