Author: linda_trinh

This morning we had the pleasure of sitting with Rick French, CEO of French West Vaughan. We asked lots of questions and he told us all about his career journey. Earlier on in his life, he was a pro tennis player! Along with sharing things he’s learned throughout his life, he gave us great advice on what to think about as we’re finishing up high school and going into college. Rick French has an incredible history and currently has many different ventures besides the agency. For example, he owns a minor league baseball team along with a production studio! He has lots of connections to Hollywood celebrities like Lady Gaga, Iggy Azalea, and Dwayne Johnson just to name a few. The secret to how he’s able to manage all of his broad ventures is that he chooses work that he genuinely loves. He told us that he would still participate in all of his projects and deals even if he wasn’t paid. My biggest takeaway from our meeting with him is that nothing is set in stone. His whole life, Mr. French imagined himself in the journalism field, but here he is now, thriving in the PR industry!

Selfie with Rick French!

The office is doing a trial run where employees can bring their dogs into the office! Here is a dog we ran into before our meeting with Mr. French.

As June starts, everyone is back in the office! To start the morning off, we had the chance to listen in on the first TTT meeting of the month where everyone gives updates on all the projects they’re working on. They first welcomed some of the new employees and interns. They also gave new updates about the office since people have been remote for a year (and lots of things have changed since then) along with listing all the employee birthdays they have this month (lots of June birthdays). Then they went through the different teams and went through every project and where they are on the timeline for that specific project. There are numerous projects and some of which have been going on for over a year! One of the most interesting projects to me is the new Iggy Azalea fragrance coming out where FWV is in charge of the PR for it.

In the morning, we started off the morning by shadowing Lauren French, Assistant Account Executive at FWV. She had a bunch of calls that we had the chance to sit and listen in on. She focuses on media coverage for her clients. For example, there is a nation pet event coming up next year and right now Lauren and her team are trying to get media coverage for that event. She works on both large and small projects. For example, she also posts on social media for a veterinarian who focuses only on cats. So she posts fun cat memes and GIFs on their Facebook account daily along with monthly engagement insights.

After lunch, we had the opportunity to shadow Alaina Ruggery, Social Media Manager at FWV. Her main focus is content creation along with connecting clients with influencers. She walked us through how she finds influencers she thinks are best to partner with for specific products along with the usual agreements they make for them. Influencers have the freedom to create whatever content they like with the product, but afterward, FWV looks over it before it gets approved. FWV also usually gives the influencers a list of dos and don’ts to keep in mind. To find influencers, Alaina keeps up with certain tags on Instagram and takes note of an influencer’s audience engagement. She also told us some bad experiences she’s had with some influencers to let us know that sometimes they have to deal with inconvenient and incompetent people. However, all in all, it was very interesting to hear how FWV connects clients with influencers in order to promote their product and what the whole process looks like:)

Alaina showing us some content created for the Disney Princess Style Instagram page.

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