'The Hub' and the Over the Top Expedition

Well, seven work days into my placement and I’ve finally found a spare moment to talk about it!

My experience with The Hub Marketing Communications stretches back to the start of the summer holidays, when, knowing I wanted to at least begin full-time work in the consulting field, I decided to get in touch with a few public relations consultancies to secure some work experience over the break. I targeted only the firms involved in the disciplines and industries which really appealed to me (I feel I'm most interested in activities where public relations and my other major, marketing, converge). The Hub was my first preference and it just so happened that they were the only firm to give me any sort of positive response, telling me they were busy over Christmas but to get back to them in January - so I guess everything happens for a reason...

In mid-January I did call them back and they arranged for me to come in for an interview, where I first met the Director, Nicolle, and Marketing Communications Coordinator Heather. The vibe from both was immediately positive and since then they have made me feel very much part of the team. They interviewed me like they would for someone actually applying for a job, which is part of Nicolle’s philosophy of giving interns the full employee experience, rather than just making them file papers for three months - something I have appreciated greatly.

Since starting my internship Nicolle and Heather have certainly stayed true to their word, assigning me a variety of meaningful tasks which have been at times testing but overall very rewarding. Nicolle paired me with Heather to help with the campaign of their non-profit client, the Over The Top Expedition. I was really excited when Nicolle told me about the project because aside from enjoying consultancy work, I've found myself quite drawn to assignments involving the non-profit sector during my studies (I guess I like a challenge!).

The Expedition involves Nicolle’s father Peter, a prostate cancer survivor, and his brother Phillip journeying 9500km from Sydney to Perth over the top of Australia’s coastline in only an 8.6m ‘rubber ducky’ boat. All money raised from the Expedition is going to the Cancer Council to fund prostate cancer research.

The increasing sense that this internship was 'meant to be' became downright scary when I later found out that Peter and my dad were really good mates and I had, in fact, met Peter several times before!

The Over The Top Expedition with launch on August 1^st of this year but in the mean time there is still a frighteningly large amount of work to be done, as I discovered on my first morning when Heather had me go through the project tracking sheet and update it. The primary focus to date has been securing sponsorship for the Expedition, a process I’ve aided by writing the cover letters for several of the companies being approached. Soon after arriving we actually secured Honda as naming rights sponsor which was a big achievement.

My duties certainly extend beyond writing letters however, and it’s been an interesting and hugely educational experience to work on so many different little projects day to day, hour to hour. Just some of the jobs I've completed to date include:

- - Compiling a media contacts list (a huge job and admittedly not the most fun)

- - Writing media releases

- - Writing feature articles released to several magazines, including one for sponsor Toll Holdings, which has an industry magazine that is distributed internationally

- - Sitting in on meetings and writing up the minutes

- - Drawing up a run-sheet for the Boat Christening to be held in May

- - Starting a Facebook fan page (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Honda-Over-The-Top-Expedition/175604439151898)

- - Writing up a comprehensive marketing communications strategic document for the campaign

- - Writing up the media relations strategy for the campaign

- - Helping to brainstorm slogans for other clients of The Hub

Some tasks have certainly captured my interest more than others, but the whole point behind this placement is to determine what aspects of PR I really enjoy, excel at and want to pursue. Overall the experience so far has been enjoyable and a big learning curve. The days absolutely fly by and it’s been really rewarding to be doing jobs that actually have some ‘real world’ meaning. There's still plenty to be done on the campaign so I'm looking forward to learning plenty more over the coming weeks.