Beers, Bands, and Buds

For my bonus event, I interviewed Caitlin Rinaldi, who is a recent West Chester University graduate and works in the advertising department at Everfresh Juice Company. Caitlin is a good friend of my cousin and I met her over winter break. We talked briefly about her position and she told me about the online advertising movement Everfresh was going through.

Me:

What brought you to Everfresh? While you were in school, did you think that you would end up working mostly online?

Caitlin:

No, I didn’t. When I used to think of “advertising”, I would think of poster boards with giant picture ideas, like Mad Men. I imagined myself presenting ideas to groups through giant still-shots and printed ideas. But that’s not at all what I have been doing. It’s definitely different than I expected.

Me:

Different good, or different bad? What did you do to prepare for this “online” advertising?

Caitlin:

Different good, I think! It’s funny, because advertising is so much more than just TV or print ads anymore. When people want to hear your advertising plan it’s now like, “okay, so that is what you will do to catch the attention of some people. What about building your online presence? Where will we advertise on the web?” or if we’re hosting a big sale we’re like “well what websites should we post it on? What feedback is our Facebook page/Twitter receiving?” There is just so much more ground to cover now. But it’s nice because we can get immediate feedback too (through Facebook/Twitter/online presence) – so we know what we really need to focus our advertising on.

Me:

That must be nice. Do you guys really make differences based on customer feedback online?

Caitlin:

Absolutely. It is like free market research, so why wouldn’t we take advantage of it. We can also see where we are getting hits from, so if our Facebook page is bringing in a lot of feedback- we know that focusing advertising there will be effective. It’s my job to make sure we’re not only covering our grounds with advertising but also making sure that we are actually getting through to people and increasing sales.

Me:

So, do you think that online advertising is where the world is headed?

Caitlin:

Definitely. I think that we’re already there. It’s changed from poster boards and pictures to IPads and computer generated marketing approaches. We have the sources now so we need to take advantage.

I thought talking with Caitlin was interesting because she actually works in a role that used to be extremely paper based, but with time and technology is converting to an online career.