A Day in the Life In the Lab – Entry 3

By: Sarah Gentilucci

Lab3 Marketing Intern

Have you ever seen the movie UP?! You know, the one with the balloon house and the cute little old man and the round little boy scout and the talking dog…well there are a few talking dogs in that movie, but I’m talking about the one that gets distracted by little things such as squirrels?

Well, squirrel has become a code word here in the office.  As creative marketing scientist sometimes our ideas get all boggled up in our head and we can be talking about one thing and then all of a sudden BOOM! You have an idea or thought and get completely distracted and blurt out what you’re thinking and then everyone else chimes in…or should I say starts “mixing” you know, like mixing chemicals…get where I’m going with that?  

Basically, our own ideas distract us and squirrel has become a code word in meetings when we start to get a little side tracked.   Whenever someone realizes this (It’s usually Annette, she’s the mom of the office) you blurt out SQUIRREL and it brings everyone to realize that we are completely off topic and its time to bring it back into focus.  That is just one of the few little office details that we have going on here!  Besides the dog parties that we have everyday, our little furry friends always keep things interesting in the office.  All the cute little pups help you when you have brain farts and need a little time away from your work; the dogs are always up for a game of fetch!

Besides all the fun we have here in the office I really have been learning and experiencing a lot! Erika has given me a lot of good tips when it comes to blogging and writing newsletters, it’s all about personality when you’re writing either one of those.  She’s also helped me with research ideas when coming up with new content for clients, like the 60-20-20 rule.  The information you collect for clients should contain 60% educational information, 20% inspirational items, and 20% fun and entertaining posts.  But the days that I really enjoy in the office is when we all sit down in meetings to brainstorm ideas for things such as tag lines, competitions, and other new and fresh ideas for our clients.  It’s helpful to have a room full of people when doing these things because you might have an idea for something but another person might see it differently that might not make sense.  I’m learning that it is all about the perspectives of people and when you work with a group you get different sides and views to an idea, it’s really cool because in the end you end up with something that is completely unique and different to what you started with.  It’s pretty awesome how the process works out and its never a boring time either, brainstorming that is, next thing you know you look at a clock and at least a good 30-45 minutes have passed and it only feels like 10 and you already have two pages of ideas.  That’s when we put it aside and come back to it later on the in the day or a few days later and start sorting through the ideas and doing more of the detailed thinking.  I love it.  I love everything that I do here!  But its time to go bother Lisa and her dogs Gus and Ezra…I can hear her calling my name from down the hall now “GEN-TI-LUCCCCIII…”