Nathan Smith with the officers of the Marketing Club, Professor Tellefsen, Professor Gertner, and Professor Gagliardi, who is the faculty advisor for the Marketing Club

The Marketing Association at CSI recently treated more than 100 business students to an event featuring Nathan Smith, who has worked for Young & Rubicam and Deutsch Inc. advertising companies. The event was attended by over 100 students.

Smith not only discussed his experience in advertising but also his journey through college and how he arrived where he is today. He began the seminar by showing clips of LG mobile advertisements on which he had worked over the past year and a half. The commercials featured LG’s “Give It a Ponder” campaign and the LG Chocolate Touch Phone. He also explained how advertising is an adventure and provided information about his background. He went to Brigham Young University and he landed an internship at the Kassing Andrews advertising agency, a local agency in Salt Lake City, where he worked full-time. At that position, one of his projects was Big O Tires. After Kassing, he secured a position at Young & Rubicam, a much larger organization in comparison to Kassing. At Young & Rubicam he worked on different accounts such as LG Mobile and Valvoline.

Smith was also able to provide insight on what it is like to work both in small and large companies, noting that both types of organizations have their pros and cons. He informed the students that by working in a small company one may have more responsibility and receive perks but it may not provide the credibility on a résumé that a large agency would. In a large agency, he added, it is extremely competitive and promotion may be based on a timeline but employees get to work on different accounts and their work receives more recognition.

Smith recently joined Deustch Inc., where he works on accounts such as Outback Steakhouse and gets to create and work on various TV spots and commercials. He concluded by providing some key factors that would be useful to the students while they are in school and commented that there are several things that he wishes he knew while still in college, like the long hours that students have to put in. He also explained how internships are a key to building professional relationships.

The evening concluded with a short Q&A and with Marketing Association Secretary Shammy Shivaprasad and Club Member Pete Diemer presenting a plaque to Smith to show the club’s appreciation.

          VP of Marketing  Club
          Nazia Hussain