Midnight Oil Spring 2015 Application
Thanks for your interest in Midnight Oil Advertising! We are AAF Illinois’ student run, full-service advertising agency, working with local businesses in the Champaign-Urbana area. We are looking for members with a passion for what they do and the willingness to put in the extra effort to finish a project. Midnight Oil requires you to submit a brief project to be considered for membership. Please attach a copy of your resume in addition to your response to this project.
Below you will find instructions for applying to the position you are most interested in. You may choose from Account Management, Account Planning, or Creative (Copywriting, Art Directing, Web-Designing, Videography, Producing). If you are unsure which position you would like to pursue, you may provide a response to more than one discipline. Do not sweat this project! We do this to get a glimpse of how your mind works. If you show hard work and passion, we will see it! We highly recommend that you do not wait until the last minute to start working on your application.
Account Management
As an Account Manager, it is your job to become an expert on our client and their industry. You will serve as the liaison between the client and our agency. Account Managers will join Midnight Oil Exec members on client meetings.
In the past, Midnight Oil has worked for a client that was sometimes difficult to handle. The client gave very tight deadlines; they expected our Account Planning and Creative members to produce a perfected creative work in 1-2 days. As an Account Manager, how would you communicate with the client and handle the situation? Please write a 1 page, double spaced response to the above.
Account Planner
As an Account Planner, it is your job to know everything about the consumer we are targeting. Your job will be to find this out with both secondary and primary research, and arrive at a key insight to relay to Midnight Oil’s creative team.
One of our newest clients, Roland Realty is a leasing company on the University of Illinois campus. Roland is very successful with securing housing contracts with the Greek Community. However, Roland would like to target international students more effectively. Devise a primary research strategy for our client utilizing secondary research. Specify what kind of primary research you would use to arrive at a strategy (focus group, interviews, etc). Do not conduct any primary research for this project! The final product is a one-page write-up of your strategy and how you arrived there. Assume there is no budget for this project.
Creative
As a Creative, you are the one responsible for producing tangible work for the clients. We are looking for Creatives who have the ability to create copy for ads, design the ads, and/or have experience in video editing.
This is our first year working with the client Joe's Brewery. For the creative application, we would like for you to create an ad promoting Joe's brewery to U of I students. We are open to any and all ideas, so feel free to be as creative as you would like. If you are producing a video and it cannot be uploaded, you can attach a link to the video, or a link to previous work and show us your application assignment upon interviewing.
All Creatives must also submit a document specifying what role within the Creative category you would like to fulfill. Please explain why you feel that you’re strongly suited for this position. Please state if you have skills in Adobe Photoshop, Adobe InDesign, copywriting, and/or video editing programs.
Please submit your application by Friday, February 6th @ 11:59 pm.
Any questions or additional attachments can be sent to midnightoiladvertising@gmail.com
Executive VP Accounts, David Evans- evansd93@gmail.com
Executive VP Creative, John Morgan- jamorga2@illinois.edu
Account Director, Sydney McComas- sydmccomas@gmail.com
New Business, Adriana Garst - agarst045@gmail.com