Why Axis
The Summer Internship Program (SIP) is an experiential learning educational initiative taken by FLAME University during the second year of our undergraduate program. I was fortunate to know Niranjan Natarajan, founder and creative director at Why Axis, who was gracious in providing me with an internship opportunity at his agency. My proposed role at Why Axis was to gain exposure to the overall functioning of the agency by working on live projects in multiple categories. Simultaneously, I was required to curate a portfolio across media of the working process and final products approved. The outline of goals to be covered during the span of my internship was to gain an understanding of the agency functioning and overview, brands and tone of voice (TOV) articulation, and the importance of insights. In order to further capture my learning, its practical application was to write by the diverse platforms of media advertising.
At the beginning of my internship, I was provided with a structure that outlined the various tasks my supervisor would require me to accomplish in order to gain a scope of the work done at Why Axis. The first activity undertaken was called Discover me. Discover why. The activity required me to answer three questions about myself as if I were providing an agency with my personal brand’s creative brief. Once my supervisor, Niranjan Natarajan became familiar with my style of writing and instinctive ideation method, he was able to set me forward with live project work and portfolio curation.
I spent the next few days observing the work done by members of different teams, while simultaneously getting briefed on the company’s functioning and processes. My skills in elaborative copywriting were taken forward for live projects with the brand ZeroHarm. I then proceeded to continue such work over the duration of my internship. Such included writing copies for their Amazon product details, website descriptions, windows, videos, plus, and social media creatives. This is where I gained live experience doing copy work, research and appropriate editing as per client feedback. I recognised the range of copywriting and was able to dabble in some of those areas with the work offered to me.
Alongside this, I was given 3 project campaigns to ideate for, which worked toward building a portfolio to track my personal progress in skill development and comprehension of creative ideation across media. The first project, was the BlueStone ‘Big Gold Upgrade’ campaign. The creative brief requested OOH creative concepts that would emphasise their offer to exchange old gold jewellery for a higher caratage value. My brainstorming process was then done through a visual and word search, from which I was able to propose concept creatives.
Next, I was given Levi’s slim-fit jeans as a product to ideate for across platforms. This intended that I propose concept ideas for print media, social media, film, radio, OOH and ambience. In order to begin such a process, it is necessary to outline the key articulation of my core thought. This entails recognising the product benefit, the emotional benefit offered through the core thought, and defining a key visual. My key articulation stated that the product benefit is its contour and body-fitting style. This follows the emotional core thought that in order for the product to be inclusive of all body types, the term ‘slim-fit jeans’ is altered to ‘contour jeans’ accompanied by the tagline, ‘jeans for every body’. The pun on the word ‘everybody’ suggests that it can be worn by people with all body types, but does not lose its quality as body-fitting jeans. This key articulation was approved by my supervisor who then allowed me to apply it and begin ideation across media platforms.
My third and final project imitated the structure for the Levi’s campaign with Titan, for a slim watch called Titan Edge. Here, the emotional approach for key articulation would not suit the brand and hence required an explorative approach. This meant, I would ideate and propose concepts, which would get feedback and sent back for editing. These ideas would have potential routes which I was allowed to explore and work on. An exercise like this encouraged me to attempt working on various directions without fixating on a core thought since the project was not live and could not go in for client approval. The Titan brand was fit for this due to its open-ended brief, the only identifiable product benefit being that it was a slim watch.
All the projects worked on during my internship were curated on a miro board to compile my portfolio, which laid out my processes, the given feedback and how it improved over time. The board also provides a visual map and layout of my journey which is integral for a company working toward visually creative ideation/work.