IMCC3901 INTERNSHIP REPORT

Intern: Laurelle J. Taylor

ID Number: 620042751
Supervisor: Mr. Conrad Mathison(CEO/MD)
Lecturer: Dr. Livingston White
Due Date: March 10,2014

Laurelle J. Taylor ID 620042751
INTRODUCTION
As part of the Integrated Marketing Communications program, students are required to complete
an internship course in order to gain hands on experience in the fields of public relations,
advertising and social marketing. The internship is to be a minimum of 4 weeks. It gives IMC
students the opportunity to get a foot into the working world with the possibility of being asked
to return to the organization, full-time, after the internship is completed. The following is an
evaluation of my internship experience at Its Pixel Perfect (IPP) in 2013











Laurelle J. Taylor ID 620042751
BACKGROUND
Its Pixel Perfect is a young multi-media organization that is the brain child of Mr. Conrad
Mathison (CEO), who won a entrepreneurs competition while attending the University of the
West Indies in the faculty of Social Sciences. A lot of companies outsource a lot of services such
as graphic and web page design from multiple entities. Mr. Mathison jumped at the opportunity
and ran with it. He saw the need for there to be a single place where organizations can go to
make their brands social. The companys mission is to make your brand social.
Services Offered
Its Pixel Perfect offers the following services to companies and individuals:
Social Media Marketing inclusive of(but not limited to) Twitter, Facebook, YouTube,
Instagram, Vine
Social Media Management
Photography inclusive of photo editing for print and online use
Graphic Design for print and online use
Web Page Development
Web Page Management
Video Direction - inclusive of creative direction and capturing video
Video Editing
In addition to these services IPP offers additional services depending on the goals and objectives
of the client.

Laurelle J. Taylor ID 620042751
Clients
Its Pixel Perfect has a steadily increasing client base of influential organizations and individuals.
The following outlines the clients that I was exposed to during my internship period:
Azans Supercenter household shopping center
Xtras Jewelery Store
June Plum Female apparel store
Babeelicious Store that sells baby necessities
Petals & Promises Bridal Store & Florist
Digicel (sub-contract) - telecommunications
Rough Rider condom company
National Environmental Planning Agency (NEPA)
SLEEK - Magazine
UWI Mona Sports Department
UWI Mona Visitors Lodge
ZJ Bambino(local celebrity) Radio DJ/Personality on Zip 103fm
Randy Mclarren(local celebrity) Jamaican Dub Poet
Structure and Location
IPP is situated within an external place of business in the form of Material Productions located
on the University of the West Indies Mona Campus. IPP occupies an estimated 20 feet by 9 feet
area of which 50% is occupied by furniture. This furniture includes 4 chairs, storage drawers, L-
Shaped wall table with drawers, filing cabinets and a white board. The office has one Mac
Laurelle J. Taylor ID 620042751
Computer with the Adobe Suite, Microsoft Office, built in speakers. There is additional table and
drawer space for staff to setup their personal laptops and connect to the available WiFi.
Staff Members
At IPP the staff is referred to as a team. This fosters unity, family spirit and ensures that team
members share and support the vision of Its Pixel Perfect.

Its Pixel Perfect Staff Hierarchy

The table above depicts the chain of command within the organization. As you can see, without
the interns IPP has 6 staff members inclusive of Mr. Mathison. The staff members that are in
bold font work from home, one of which is in Trinidad & Tobago. Additionally there is a
vacancy in the form of the secretary.
Conrad
Mathison
(CEO/MD/CFO)
Social Media (1
staff member)
Laurelle J. Taylor
(Intern 1)
Photography &
Video (1 staff
member)
Intern 2
Graphic Design
(2 staff
members)
Intern 3
Web Design &
Development (1
staff member)
Administrative
Clerk/Secretary
(Intern 3)
Laurelle J. Taylor ID 620042751
Office Hours
IPP operates from Monday Friday with staff meetings on Saturdays. Given the fact that the
social media and web development services offered to clients are around the clock services and
the graphics, photography and video a based upon need, IPP office hours are dynamic. Mr.
Mathison is work rate oriented. He places little emphasis on each staff members work hours,
provided they are performing up to standard. Social Media pages can be managed anywhere
there is internet access and a computer. Also, the departments outside of social marketing are
highly creative. As such Mr. Mathison encourages staff in these departments to work when their
creative juices are flowing (eg. if you work better at night). For the purpose of the internship
my office hours were Mondays Fridays 10am 6pm.









Laurelle J. Taylor ID 620042751
INTERNSHIP EXPERIENCE
Job Duties & Description
While serving my internship at IPP I was given the opportunity to gain experience in the
companys administrative, social media, video, graphics department and web development
departments. The following is an outline of my various roles and functions while at Its Pixel
Perfect in no particular order:
Compile Potential Clients Directory- I was given the task of documenting contact
information for all business place in the Liguanea area in Kingston(See Apendix).
Included was telephone number, email address, name of managing director, marketing
manager or CEO. In addition a brief assessment was made of the organizations social
media presence, web site, graphics and photography to determine what areas needed
assistance. This was done in an effort to determine which of the organizations were most
ready for the services offered by IPP. Subsequent to submitting this list, myself and
another intern were asked to think about all organizations and entities in the Kingston
area that could use IPPs service. Specific emphasis was placed on wholesale distributors
(eg. HD Hopwood) and motor sales companies (eg. KIA Motors).
Compose and Send Proposals to Potential Clients- Upon completion of the previously
mentioned list of potential clients, I was given the task of formulating a 1 page
proposal(see appendix). This proposal was to be as concise as possible and not overly
verbose. The letter was to be personalized (rather than generic) and convey the tone and
persona of Its Pixel Perfect. It also needed to be structured in a way that it could be
easily viewed on a mobile phone.
Laurelle J. Taylor ID 620042751
Administrative Assistance- Make follow-up phone calls to potential clients regarding
proposals. Contact existing clients. General administrative assistance.
Social Media Management- I was made content creator for the companys Facebook
page and given control of the companys Twitter account.
o Faceboook- I was given the task of posting snippets of mini-infographics every
Wednesday. The social media calendar at IPP participates in Infographic-
Wednesdays. These infographics were centered around social media marketing
strategies and techniques. They were also expected to be current and relevant.
After locating a suitable infographic (which is usually vertical) each week, I split
the graphic into 5-6 subsections under overriding topic by capturing screenshots.
These 5-6 snippets were scheduled to be posted strategically spaced between the
hours of 8am 8pm each Wednesday. The captions for these posts would include
the topic of discussions along with #SocialMedia, #Infographic, #ItsPixelPerfect,
#IPPLimitlessLikeWeOnNZT and any other suitable hashtags. This was done in
order to populate the Facebook page and allow for interested Facebook users to
search and locate the post (linked to IPP) because at the time Facebook had
recently launched its hashtagging feature.
o Twitter- I was given the responsibility of managing the companys Twitter page
(@ItsPixelPerfect). I was given a weekly quota which was broken down into daily
obligations. This included ReTweeting tweets about social media marketing,
interacting with followers, following social media marketing practitioners in
addition to tweeting information about and related to IPP and its clients. This
would all be supported by the Facebook posts which are linked to the Twitter
Laurelle J. Taylor ID 620042751
account. Upon the approval of Mr. Mathison, I was given freedom to deviate from
the daily obligations to include Motivational Monday tweets in the form of quotes
and pictures, Hump Day tweets on Wednesdays, T.G.I.F. tweets, current affairs
and humor. Additionally, the companys blog posts were shared via Twitter
tagging any accounts that may have been mentioned quoting an excerpt from the
post. This resulted in an increase in followers and follower interaction.
o Vine- The companys Vine account was managed by another intern however,
ideas about what to post were a team effort. I came up with the idea for a
humorous Vine which depicted an image of a dog gradually being formed after
which a speech bubble appeared and the audio Yaaaaaow was recorded.
o Instragram- The companys Instagram account was managed by another intern
however, while in the office I made behind the scenes posts on the IPP Instagram
account. These included single photos and insta-collages. These posts were also
linked to the Twiter account.
Blogging- The companys blog featured posts from all staff members on various topics. I
was given a blog topic by the head of the Social Media Department to be posted weekly. I
was given a week to do my research on the topic and send in my posts. The blog topics
assigned to me were How Businesses Use Vine, 10 Jamaican Brands to Follow on
Twitter, 10 Jamaican Brands to Follow on Facebook, 10 People to Follow on Twitter,
How to Start a Facebook Page, Scotia Bank Jamaica vs NCB (who does social media
better), and LIME vs DigiCel (who does social media better).
Vlogging- The blog post with the highest views each week was made into a video blog
post (vlog) on the IPP Youtube channel. The 10 Jamaican Brands to Follow on Twitter
Laurelle J. Taylor ID 620042751
was made into a 5 Jamaican Brands to Follow on Twitter video which I was in. This
video featured a randomly selected 5 from the 10 and provided a link to the original blog
in the videos description.
Learn Elevator Pitch- I was required to learn the Its Pixel Perfect elevator pitch. The
video department recorded the IPP team saying the elevator pitch and put together a
video featuring the team members saying the pitch (including bloopers). This video can
be found on the YouTube channel.
Website Content Provider- Its Pixel Perfect client Rough Rider was revamping their
website while I served my internship. Mr. Mathison gave me the sole responsibility of
providing the content for the website. I was given a template for the website for which I
was to come up with all the text on the site. I had to come up with the text on the
homepage and all subpages. This information included About Rough Rider, Our
Condoms (which included a description of each product offered), Play Safe: How to Use
a Condom (which I designed an Infographic for), How to Enjoy Sex with a Condom,
Frequently Asked Questions and Terms & Conditions (See Apendix). After Completion
of this task I was then given the opportunity to do the same for another client SLEEK. I
was unable to fulfill this task as my internship period was up.
Infographic Designer- While working on the Rough Rider website I suggested the
possibility to Mr. Mathison, of using an Infographic to depict Play Safe: How to Use a
Condom for said section of the website. After giving me the go-ahead I came up with a
sketch of what I envisioned for the Infographic to look like. It was vertical and depicted
Right vs. Wrong condom and safe sex practices. It featured cartoon drawings of people
along with statistics and facts. I was asked by Mr. Mathison to sketch an infographic to
Laurelle J. Taylor ID 620042751
be used along with the proposal to potential clients (previously mentioned). Using a
before and after concept the infographic showed the potential client(represented by a
building) having a pile of money and a long line of customers(homogenous group)
seemingly, doing alright and, with the help of IPP, the pile of money grew and the line of
customers(now multiple kinds of people) increased.
Represent IPP- I accompanied Mr. Mathison to NEPA for a brief meeting. Additionally
I attended the monthly event Corporate Mingle to practice my elevator pitch and seek
possible new clients.
Participate in Dream Board Exercise (See Apendix)
Attend Weekly Staff Meeting- There is a general staff meeting every Saturday at IPP.
The basic line items for the meetings were a team building exercise, review of the
previous week and outlining the coming weeks activities.
Personal Gain
My experiences at Its Pixel Perfect are ones that I will not forget as I learned a lot. It was the
first time I had ever worked for someone I had no affiliation with. As such I value Mr.
Mathisons opinion of my work ethic. I was able to learn to navigate a modern Mac computer,
utilizing more of the built-in software. I learned how to schedule posts and utilize the admin
panel on a FaceBook page. I also truly valued the opportunity to develop the content for a
website by myself. This is something that I believe has upped my skill set. Blogging is
something that I had to do as part of Organizational Communication. I was able to adapt well to
providing content for the companys blog as the approach used was the same in practice and in
theory. Participating in the video shoots allowed me to see that because cinematography is art,
Laurelle J. Taylor ID 620042751
and is subject to the directors creative approach, while there is a proper way to do things such a
lighting and framing a shot size, the manner in which your content is captured is not limited to
theory. IPPs style of doing videos takes a behind the scenes, inside scoop approach which
captures human nature which is dynamic. When compiling the list of potential clients I was able
to put together a spreadsheet which could be approached by anyone. I acted as gatekeeper when
composing my blog posts. Additionally, there was some amount of agenda setting in the
inclusion of IPP clients in the brands to follow posts. In classes agenda setting was depicted as
something negative. However, I have come to appreciate its value. I was especially appreciative
of the theory discussed in Communication Planning An Integrated Approach by Sherry
Devereaux Ferguson. Audience Analysis aided in my effective management of the Twitter page
along with structuring the proposal letter and Infographic and Message Design helped me to
appreciate the value of making communication as visual and graphic as possible. These two
aspects are at the core of IPPs mission to make brands social.
Working closely with a small group of persons allowed forced me to respect other individuals
space and the flexible work hours ensured that I developed a high level of respect and
understanding for other persons work ethic. Though the work environment at IPP is casual, I got
the opportunity to put my knowledge of professionalism to the test in the form of my attire,
conduct, deportment and expression. I learned that I have a strong personality that may clash
with persons with a more submissive personality. As such, I learned that it is sometimes better to
allow others to voice their opinion before you state your stance. This especially aided in my
development as a student leader as upon completion of my internship my tenure as Guild
councilor began. The weekly staff meetings taught me the value of effective communication
within any organization because this was the one day of the week that all Staff was present. The
Laurelle J. Taylor ID 620042751
communication in these sessions were of great importance as that is the point of convergence of
knowledge and information within Its Pixel Perfect. I found myself taking the initiative to aid in
the internal public relations within the organization as I was one to voice arising concerns
regarding breakdown in communication offering a possible solution.
Critique and Recommendation
Upon completion of my internship I was able to do an objective review of Its Pixel Perfect
Based upon my experiences there.
Strengths
Persons are strategically hired.
Work environment encourages individuality.
Opinions are always welcomed by Mr. Mathison.
Mr. Mathison is actively involved in all aspects of the organization which shows team
that he is appreciative.
Flexible work hours.
Staff members (and interns) are treated as equals regardless of age and experience.
The environment strikes the balance between a professional and casual environment.
Staff members dreams and long term goals are appreciated and an effort is made to
incorporate them into the companys goals (eg. speech lessons for a staff member who
wanted to master public speaking.
The clients are treated as family and inter-client connections are made in an effort to
boost clients revenue.
Laurelle J. Taylor ID 620042751
The company is hungry for information as team members are always up to date on
information related to their departments.
The work environment fosters individual and collective development.
Weaknesses
Clients are ignorant to the benefits of the services offered by IPP. As such they are
unwilling to pay a realistic cost for the services.
The office location and size is too crowded.
The Rough Rider website content that I provided was not proof-read by Mr. Mathison nor
was the Terms & Conditions approved by a lawyer.
Mr. Mathison does not have as strong a grasp on the Social Media department.
All the staff members think their ideas are the best.
Interns were asked to be present for work at 10am each morning however, more often
than not, neither the supervisors nor Mr. Mathison were present until in the afternoon.
This left interns sitting inside the office with no direction as to what to do at the onset of
the internship period.
Often, interns were asked to stay after their shift was over to continue working.
Sometimes Interns worked 12 hour days.
Interns were promised a stipend of JMD20,000 at the end of 4 weeks (Monday to
Saturday). However, we did not receive payment until working for 6 weeks(because Mr.
Mathison was busy) and we were not compensated for overtime hours or additional two
weeks.
Laurelle J. Taylor ID 620042751
At the end of the internship period I left feeling as though I may have been exploited and
therefore do not wish to return.
Staff meeting scheduled to start at 2pm often dont commence until 4pm. Resulting in a
waste of an entire day for staff. This causes delinquency among staff members.
Opportunities
Relocate office to the corporate area in an effort to boost credibility.
Potential clients outside of the Kingston area for example in Montego Bay, Mandeville,
Negril & Ocho Rios.
There are quite a bit of firms locally that are in need of the services offered by IPP
especially social media management.
Growth in number of staff members to offset work load of others which will result in
each person doing an 8 hour shift and IPP have respectable office hours.
Ensure that all staff members have accounts with the same bank as IPP so that salary
deduction can be put in place.
Have an open house day where clients are invited in to the office to see first-hand the
work done at IPP. This will foster appreciation (better financial commitment) of the
services offered by IPP.
A reward and demerit system to ensure that the level of delinquency decreases.
A Secretary for meetings to ensure that the Agenda is sent out each week along with
circulation of minutes.


Laurelle J. Taylor ID 620042751
Threats
Competition, such as SKKAN Media & Ishango is more popular and has higher reach.
Staff members are young and may view Its Pixel Perfect as a stepping stone rather than a
career opportunity.
Inconsistent payment with no compensate with result in resignation of workers.
Staff members will leave IPP and take skills and expereice gained and start a similar
company to compete with IPP.
Inefficient communication among workers, specifically absentee workers can result in a
breakdown of the organization.
Small number of staff members leaves the company vulnerable if multiple persons resign
around the same time.









Laurelle J. Taylor ID 620042751
Conclusion
The internship course is one that teaches IMC students valuable lessons through work
experience. Not only does it boost your resume but it enables students to put theory into practice
making a comparison and ultimately deciding what aspect of integrated marketing
communications they would like to work in. I learned the value of tolerance, endurance,
initiative and communication while working at Its Pixel Perfect and will bring the skills and
experiences gained with me into the world of work.