INTERNSHIP AT SOPHIE PARIS INDONESIA

By: Priscilla Natasha Pelupessy (Student of International Marketing)

It baffles me how 6 months of my internship time in PT Sophie Paris Indonesia is now almost over. During this wonderful opportunity offered by the 3+1 program, I’d like to admit that no other experience that I learned from class will beat my time in this internship period. It’s appropriate to say that I learned about Marketing so much more in half of a year, compared to only studying the theories in classes for 3 years.

For me, learning has even started since I went searching for the internship job through websites like Jobstreet.com. From that site, I was able to find an opening for Marketing intern in Sophie Paris, which from the written job desks, is literally my dream job. Since then, I learned how to create an interesting CV (both content-wise and aesthetically) to be able to compete with hundreds of other participants who are applying for the same job. I couldn’t do anything else but being thankful when it turned out that I got to pass the interview and accepted to the job in approximately 2 weeks’ time. From this, I learned that for jobs linked to digital is more likely to be promoted by the company though digital mediums too, which are more easy, effective, and cost-friendly than publishing them offline.

On my first day in Sophie Paris, I was a little anxious of what to expect. I never had anything close to being an intern, and therefore I only had the will to do my job perfectly. Thankfully, I was greeted by a wonderful team of people who are in charge of the PR, Copywriting (Social Media and Content Creator) and Marketing Program divisions. I quickly became well-adjusted to team because of their outgoing and dynamic personalities. I was also introduced to other teams that are going to collaborate a lot with our team, such as Business Development, Layout, and Merchandising teams, even though now I have learned that being in the Marketing team means collaborating with everyone at the company (for reals.)

On the first month I worked which is February, I was involved in lots of projects related to Social Media and PR. For social media, I learned how to do a planning, scheduling, and posting of all our contents that are especially designed for our Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. There were also different photo shoots that I got to collaborate with the studio team, whereas I got to create a fun concept according to the project. For example, I was given a task to prepare photo-shoot for Shop The Look, which is our own OOTD styles to make it easier for customers to mix-and-match their Sophie look. This task was very exciting for me, because I got to be as stylish as possible and created unique concepts. I was also in charge of shooting Insta-stories during special events such as: Catalog launching and TV ads shoot, to make Sophie more well-known. These tasks were very fun for me as I am really interested in social media and its influence to the company.

A month after, I began working on Sophie Paris blog. I started to post beauty, fashion and event articles every day to add more content to the web. My priority for this task, though, is to publish 100 Success Stories articles from Sophie Members all over Indonesia in the span of 4 months. From this task, I learned to divide my time well to interview people through the phone and then write the articles about them. I was also challenged to gain the information necessary to make the article interesting.

 As for PR division, I learned so much in terms of communicating with media and public. Because Sophie Paris is now advancing more towards the digital side, I was asked to do a lot of celebrity endorsement and partnership. I got to do a research in finding well-known public figures and social media influencers for Sophie to collaborate with. It means that I got to do everything; starting from contacting their managers to talk about price rate, discussing meeting time, and entertain them when they’re around. I was given the opportunity to work with Farah Quinn, Dhini Aminarti, and Dimas Seto for their photoshoots and events attendance. It is very important that even though we are paying them to be our ambassadors, we must also keep a close relationship so that they could bring a good image of Sophie Paris to their own communities. Just like my experience with Dhini, she was very fond of the whole team during our first photoshoot and several events, that all the social media posts that she published about us were so sincere and made us known in her community. I was also involved in partnership projects with designers like Ria Miranda and Jenahara. I learned that, all public figures are generally nice, but it depends on the companies to treat them well (with bonus products, benefits, etc.) in order to create trust and good relationship with them.

Other than that, every month Sophie sends out a press release to the media so that we have a chance to be covered in their spreads. This means that, every month, the PR supervisor and I came up with highlighted products from each catalogue to be sent. For me personally, I really enjoyed this task because I got to create different styles for each press release that will suit the month. Starting from finding inspirations for the style, up to creating the greeting cards for media boxes, were something I had a good time doing. I also need to follow-up the media around a month after the press release is sent to know if they wrote about us or not and then give us the data.

One event that’s really memorable during my time collaborating with PR division is when we were to create a Blogger Gathering for Private Preview of Ria Miranda and Jenahara collection in less than a month. My supervisor briefed that we will need to come up with an unforgettable concept for the event, as it would be our first time doing an event like that with social media influencers. We need to build the hype for the event to make our products known. Because the venue was fixed in Karumba Rooftop, I decided to go with a more bohemian and middle-east (close to the style that have at the restaurant) for the whole concept. I designed the decoration to have bright and popping colors to make the whole event seems lively, and also listed which items we would need in order to do so. Two weeks before the event, me and the team went shopping to IKEA together in order to buy some decorative stuff. It was so much fun! We got to really put our style and collaborate together in buying things that would beautify the event (candles, napkins, etc.). After that, I even went to flower market in Palmerah and bought more than a hundred flowers to be put around the venue. And not only that, I was also in charge of preparing the models for the fashion show, so I began searching for students from modeling schools and agencies to find 6 girls for the event. The most frustrating part about this event might be the invitations. It was to have the best exposure for the event, we came up with a list of more than 50 well-known fashion bloggers to be invited to the event. Starting from contacting them, sending out the invitations, and follow-ups. Although, it wasn’t unusual to receive rejections, but it was really an accomplishment to be able to finally round up to 35 bloggers and have them attended the gathering. The event went on really well, and we got a lot of exposure from the bloggers’ Insta-stories and posts.

 For Marketing Program, I worked a lot in developing the goodies with merchandising t eam and make Marketing Pages for our monthly catalog.  My task was to make sure that all the goodies are being developed well and going to arrive in our warehouse on time for catalog launch. I also did surveys for future marketing program gifts in order to get feedbacks from the Members. Other than that, I also did some spying on our competitors to make sure that our products stay competitive. Overall, my work in doing Marketing Programs really challenged me to be precise and detail in order to avoid mistakes– as one mistake will cost a lot to the company, especially when it comes to ordering goods with the quantity of thousands.

In every project that I have had the pleasure of working at, there’s one team that always supports me; and that is the Layout team. There’s no doubt that every project that the Marketing team has linked directly to the Layout team. To begin a project with them, I need to request a JIRA (sort of a request type form) and list every detail that I need them to do for the project. Tasks like creating invitation for events, designing media cards for press release and marketing pages, as well as promotion tools like banners, flyers, and posters are all designed by them. They are very talented and creative in what they do, and they understand the brand very well.

What I couldn’t forget is that Marketing team really embraced me as a part of them, likewise the other team members. There wasn’t a second that I felt I didn’t belong in the company, because everyone pushed me to be the best that I could be. Just like during my second month of working, I was invited to their personal gathering in Spa and a dinner at Koi restaurant. Even though I was new and only an intern, they treated me all the same (same as my work, HAHA)

To conclude, from my time in Sophie Paris, I learned that #marketingisnotaboutselling, but to also build trust within your customer through good image, creative events and promotions , and budgeting that will be effective for your business, thus will ultimately translate into sales. I am so grateful that I get to experience being an intern for six months in Sophie Paris. Yes, being graduated with a degree is important, but to have your own experience of working in the real world sure is an added value. Thank you.

#marketingisntallaboutselling