Saskia Van Riessen

Major: Journalism (emphasis in Strategic Communications)

Certificate: Digital Studies

Graduation Date: May 2018

How did you end up working at Colle McVoy?

I have a pretty nontraditional path! My first year out of college I taught English for a year in Madrid, Spain. I wanted to live abroad for a year and it was the best decision I’ve ever made. I got to travel around Spain and Europe while getting paid to live and work in Madrid. But I always knew I wanted to get back to the ad agency world. I thought I wanted to work in PR because I love writing so I started out in an internship at Weber Shandwick (a large PR agency) before moving over to Colle McVoy in the PR department. After being there for several months, I still had an itch to be doing strategy work. I started doing casual informational interviews with members of the Brand Strategy team and taking on extra strategy work and eventually moved over into that team within Colle McVoy. I love it!

What does a typical day in the office look like for you?

My job is to create strategies for ad campaigns that will resonate with people. To do this, I follow category and competitor trends to identify opportunities for clients and I do research to understand audiences. But it’s probably not the type of research you’d think (I hate numbers). It can be everything from doing interviews and focus groups, reading trend reports, searching Reddit or even going undercover at Dick’s Sporting Goods pretending to be someone interested in fishing. Understanding your audience, the category and the competition helps you craft a strategy that’s true to the brand, stands out from competitors and is relevant to what the brand’s audience cares about.

How has Digital Studies influenced your career path?

Getting a background in the creative process (whether it’s in InDesign, podcasting, etc.) will only help you! Even though I’m technically not a “creative” in my agency, having that understanding helps me better concept strategies that will inspire creative ideas.

Do you have any advice for current students?

1. Even once you get a job, keep networking. Meet people within your workplace in other departments during internships and jobs. Ask people if they’d be willing to get coffee or meet for 30 minutes and tell you about what they do. If their work sounds interesting, ask if you can help them out as needed. And obviously, I’m biased because I’ve only worked in agencies, but starting out at an ad agency vs. client side helps you get a variety of client experience and you’ll learn a ton!
2. Get as much public speaking experience now as you can. You’ll do a lot of presenting early on in your career. That’s awesome because it means you’ll get to showcase your ideas, both internally to other colleagues and to clients. But it can be intimidating at first, so coming in feeling comfortable with public speaking can really help. I was a tour guide in college and that gave me a ton of public speaking experience. Even if you don’t do that, being on a club exec board or presenting as much as possible in class presentations will help.
3. Live a little bit! I remember the pressure of feeling like I needed to be doing all of the internships and getting perfect grades to be able to get a job. Yes, having a few internships definitely helps. Definitely network and do informational interviews while you’re still in school. But also make sure you take time to still do the clubs and stuff you enjoy. And go travel! Work will always be there. You are going to find a job, I promise. You don’t have to intern every summer or every semester to be able to get a job after college. I interned two summers and studied abroad one summer. I taught English abroad in Spain for a year before joining the real world. I’m a huge advocate for people to travel before settling down into a real job. And having nontraditional experiences like living abroad are actually an advantage for you! Both advertising and journalism are deeply entwined in culture. The better we are able to understand those who aren’t like us, the better able we’ll be to speak to them through the work that we do. You will be able to bring a new perspective.

What achievement are you most proud of in your professional career thus far?

I led the strategy for our Jackson Hole Tourism Board winter campaign last year and I worked with an incredible creative team who made the strategy even better. The idea behind the work is that there are two types of people: those who dread the cold, the looming snowfall and everything that comes with it and those who love winter and flock to Jackson Hole. Their idea of warming up involves skis or fat tire bikes. The only blanket they need is a blanket of fresh snow. They don’t run from the weather, they run to it. Because of this rare breed, winter is the best season of them all. Among other amazing work, the team created David-Attenborough-style videos where we observe humans in Jackson Hole from afar, as the animals they are. Check them out here.