This week was very tiring, especially coming off of a trip to France and a very busy prior week. I was still able to squeeze in some really great stuff, like hanging out with Kate’s parents, going to my first work event, and taking over the Freeman College Instagram page for the week!
Internship
This week in my internship not only was I given even more responsibilities in the company, but I was also able to attend my first work event. The most interesting thing I did work-wise during the week was that I was tasked to complete a media outreach report for one of their biggest clients, PrettyLittleThing. We send these reports to the company weekly to show how we are doing in spreading the word about PLT without actually paying for ad content or influencers. I used software to search the internet to find anything mentioning the company, then picked out the positive press and made it into a Powerpoint file showing what platform it was on (Instagram, TikTok, or any print/digital media coverage), what the reach was based on the publication, and when it was posted during the week. I was really happy to be trusted with something like this. Not only did it show that the work I’ve been doing around the office is paying off, but I was also able to help Sinead M because she was doing a lot of work sending out invites for the PLT summer party happening on July 26.
The mission of Burrell is to create an integrated approach to digital, traditional, and social media campaigns through activation, measurement, and evaluation. This means that other companies will come to us with a sum of money and ask us to do different things, like gift products to influencers, or pay us to put together mailers to journalists and publications to encourage them to write about their products. This is their main source of revenue – the companies paying us to help them get their name out there, through gifting to influencers or getting their product into magazines/journals without having to explicitly pay for an ad. Burrell has many assets that assist them in being so successful. Because Burrell is a long-standing marketing and PR firm that’s run by a small group of women, they have a lot of connections that they can take advantage of to assist their clients, and they are able to connect on a personal level with all different types of people. Along with this, their main focus is marketing in Ireland, so they are able to work with both local brands (like Grace O’Malley whiskey and the hotels in Dublin they work for) and the Irish branches of more internationally known companies (like PrettyLittleThing and Boohoo). One major cost I’ve observed is that Burrell pays for our lunches and for transportation. This comes out of petty cash, but it still adds up and provides an expense. On a more professional level, they have to pay for all of the packaging we use to make PR packages to send to influencers, which can add up. They even sometimes have to pay for a new product when a company sends something that is broken or damaged. Lastly, they have to pay for the shipping costs of sending out the packages and ordering couriers, which a lot of the time are overnight deliveries. I think one way they could cut down costs is by making sure that when they gift products to influencers that they agree to post about it. Sometimes, issues will arise when we will send something to an influencer for free, and they won’t post about it, which means that there was money wasted on both the product, the packaging, and the shipping to the influencer. For that reason, maybe there could be contracts/agreements made prior to shipping, to make sure no money or product goes wasted.
On a more fun note, I also got to go to my first work event this Thursday! Usually, Burrell is invited to an event like this every couple of weeks, and they are hosted by different companies (usually hotels) to help promote themselves to both marketing & PR firms along with influencers and prominent people in Ireland. This one was on Thursday and it was at The Dean, a hotel in Dublin only a ten-minute walk from my office. The event was to celebrate the opening of a new branch of their hotel. We went on a walk through the space and got to see one of their nicest rooms, where we were served free drinks and heard live music on the balcony. Then we were taken to the downstairs space, where we also had free food and drinks. While the space was really cool, the girls I work with were saying it wouldn’t really be somewhere where we’d host an event for the majority of our clients, because it had an all-wood interior and there was really no cell phone service. However, they were saying it might be cool to have an event for a whiskey company there because of the more rustic feel. Not only was it a cool way to see how we interact with our clients and with people who want to work with us, but it was also an amazing way to get closer to my coworkers. Me, Sinead M, and Sinead O (two of the full-time employees who are both in their 20s) all got ready together at the office, which was a blast. We even lost track of time and ended up accidentally getting to the event late because we got caught up talking. We met another intern at the event, Olga, who is my age and is from Ireland. I was already very comfortable around my coworkers, but now I feel like I can call them my friends, and it makes me even more excited to go to work every day so I can see them. We had so much fun in the office on Friday recapping our nights and talking about everything that happened!
Weekend excursion: Celtic Boyne Valley
This weekend we had our trip to the Celtic Boyne Valley. Because it was a smaller group of us and we had a very interactive tour guide, it felt like a much more intimate and educational experience. The main thing that I took away from this trip was that even though something is considered “prehistoric” doesn’t mean it inherently is a myth or isn’t true. Our tour guide explained that the word “prehistoric” simply means that something happened before Catholicism came to Ireland, but there were actually people who lived and ruled there for many years before whose stories are just as legitimate. My favorite part was our first stop at the Hill of Tara. We were able to hear stories from him that have been passed down through centuries about the warrior kings who ruled Ireland. I found myself being so transfixed on the stories he was telling that I forgot I was essentially standing in a wind tunnel. I particularly liked when he showed us the fairy tree – the legend is that people tie a piece of cloth to the tree to symbolize a worry or problem they have, and as the cloth wears away, so does their problem. I tied a piece of grass to the tree, but there were different pieces of cloth, ornaments, bracelets, and even drawings all over the tree from people across the world. It was amazing to me how something like that can connect people who may have nothing else in common. The whole trip made me rethink how I view history. One thing our guide said was that just because something is a story that has been passed down through centuries doesn’t make it false – sure, it may be altered or elaborated as it’s passed down, but that doesn’t mean that there isn’t truth in it, and we should continue to tell them.
Monday: class & Glasnevin Cemetary
In class today, we had a guest lecturer come in to speak about climate action in Dublin. I thought it was really interesting to hear from her about the different factors that go into creating a more sustainable life. One thing she talked about a lot was how she cycles rather than using public transport and cars, which is something I didn’t even think of before. I am so impressed by Dublin’s public transport system that it’s hard for me to see the faults in it, especially when I’m comparing it to things like the NYC subway system, which is so dangerous and hard to navigate. So when I was hearing her talk about the different faults that Dublin’s system has, it made me realize that there is still so much to be done, even in cities that seem like they are doing very well with sustainability. She talked about the police force’s role in creating more sustainable cities as well, which is also something I didn’t consider before. If police are stricter about traffic laws and enforcing red lights/protecting bike lanes, people will feel safer riding a bike and sharing the road with cars, which can lead to fewer carbon emissions overall.
We also had the opportunity to visit Glasnevin Cemetery. On our tour, we saw a reenactment of Patrick Pearse’s speech. He was one of the main political leaders in the Easter Rising revolt against British rule. The speech was given at the funeral of Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa, and it served as almost a rallying cry for the Irish Republicans that helped spark the Easter Rising of 1916. We also saw many people buried here who were also imprisoned at Kilmainham Gaol, which we visited last week, many of whom were a part of the Easter Rising. It’s really cool to see how each different place we’re visiting plays a part in Irish history, and how they all intertwine with each other. The last thing we did at the cemetery was climb the O’Connell Tower, which is where Daniel O’Connell and his family are buried. He is one of the most famous people buried in the cemetery, and he’s known for being a political leader of Ireland’s Roman Catholic majority in the first half of the 19th century. We got to climb all 198 steps of the tower and saw a great view of the entire cemetery.
Other stuff!
Other than that, I was also able to spend time with Kate’s family on Tuesday and Wednesday this week! We went out to a pub with them and had so much fun. We tried to celebrate the 4th of July, which was interesting because we basically just looked like we were trying to go out on a Tuesday since obviously nobody in Ireland celebrates it. After my work event on Thursday Olga and I met up with a bunch of us from the program, which was so great, but definitely felt like two worlds colliding! She had a lot of fun meeting all of my friends and I was so excited to introduce her to everyone. On Friday, Ed took a group of us to an authentic Korean restaurant, which was so delicious. He taught us about some of the culture behind Korean food as well, which was so cool to hear about and see firsthand. I also got to take over the Freeman College Instagram, and it was a lot of fun to have another way to document my time here and show other people how awesome this program is. I took this weekend to rest and reset from a really hectic two weeks, so I’m feeling a lot better now about getting on track with little things like laundry or going to the gym. I’m so excited for the week ahead, as I have another work event on Wednesday and we have our Galway weekend trip! It’s weird that we are well over halfway done with our time in Dublin, but I am looking forward to having fun and learning even more during our last three weeks here.
