How to land an internship at 88 Creative

Posted on March 18, 2015 by Brendan Cruz

In my second year of Advertising and Marketing Communications Management at Algonquin College, I began my internship hunt. Originally I wanted to work at a big agency, with big clients, and big money. I started in Ottawa, hoping that I could land an internship early, but still be able to go to school. With no luck, I decided to relax a bit, and wait until my final year when I truly needed the placement.

Flash-forward a year, I was given an assignment to put together a piece to send away to potential employers in hopes of them taking my classmates and me on as interns. Our idea, which was to piece together a video asking industry professionals about their first mentor, won. We began setting up appointments with industry people all around Ottawa to find out who their first mentor was, and gain some knowledge through their wisdom.

In the end we had interviewed a handful of industry pros, ranging from junior positions to agency founders. From every interview we conducted, I found that it was unanimous that small agencies are the most exciting place to be. It was clear that small agencies can be the most fun to work at, as well as the most rewarding in the sense of being able to learn about everything, and have a hand in all sorts of clients and campaigns.

With this newfound knowledge I began to update my search. I always wanted to live in Toronto, and that was where I started to search for smaller, boutique agencies. Naturally, I went to Google and searched for “Toronto advertising agency.” After scrolling past the big boys like Taxi, John St, BBDO, etc. I stumbled across 88 Creative. I had never heard of them before. My teachers at Algonquin had never mentioned them; none of my classmates said anything about them; but my favourite NHL player is Patrick Kane and his number is 88, so I figured I might as well check out their website and see what they’re about.

After about an hour of creeping through the rabbit-hole of the 88C website, social media accounts, and blog entries, I had never been more excited about an agency. I started telling all of my friends about this little place in Toronto that has dinners together, goes away on cottage trips, and has people with the same interests and humour as me. I started reposting a bunch of the blog entries to my LinkedIn and Twitter accounts, and sending them to friends telling them to read the gold that I was sending them.

After discovering 88C, I knew I wanted to do something special to try and get their attention. In my mind, this wasn’t a place that you can just send a nicely worded email to. I got a friend and my camera, and we went to an outdoor rink and filmed a bunch of stuff that I could make a video from to show off my personality and interests. I read over the blogs once more, and noticed that the ones I enjoyed the most were actually all written by the same person, Jason Giles. I got his contact info from the 88C website, and sent him an email telling him how much I enjoyed his work, and if he wouldn’t mind checking out this video resume I had made. Not even a couple hours later I got a reply thanking me for reaching out, and asking me when I would be able to meet, and the rest is history.