I am Madhulika Sharath, a 5
th year IPM student at IIM Indore.
All you need to know about me before you read about my summer internship experience is that I have loved marketing and makeup for as long as I can remember, and I was fortunate to have been able to work for L’Oreal as a marketing intern.
My most memorable moment from my internship was when I first entered the office premises with my entry card. A wave of excitement took over my heart as I stepped in; the Consumer Products Division, which is where I worked, was an explosion of colours, music, products and people.
What struck me the most about the place was the passion with which people worked for what they believed in. You could see it in the way they thought, worked, walked, talked and breathed!
My project was working on the IMC activation for The Cannes Collection for L’Oréal Paris, the launch the entire workplace excitedly works and waits for every year. This includes the digital, and on ground activation for the launch, including motivating the salespersons, or as they are called, Beauty Advisors.
As an intern, the people I worked with never made me feel out of place, but made me feel as an integral team member. My mentor, the management trainees, and the executives, all made me feel at ease, and gave me the liberty to express my thoughts freely and execute what I believed in.
As a part of my project, I had to focus on ways of enhancing and bringing #LifeAtCannes to the consumers. We hence built a lot of smaller elements that added on to the larger picture which was the Cannes Press Conference, where the collection was launched by Deepika Padukone for the first time. The press conference wasn’t only about the ambassador and the products, but was about all the makeup enthusiasts out there; the aim was to make The Cannes Collection and #LifeAtCannes reach every nook and corner of the internet and in every Indian makeup enthusiast’s thoughts, through every possible platform possible. I also had the opportunity to interact with famous makeup enthusiasts to learn more about the industry, what it means to them, and how they worked.
When I look back at the time I spent in my workplace, what I cherish the most would be staying at work till midnight, following up with the ambassadors, Deepika Padukone, Aishwarya Rai, and Sonam Kapoor’s and their daily activities in Cannes, France. The process involved getting first-hand images of the ambassadors, breaking down the products by testing the ranges we have, and getting the advertisements put up on the products, all within minutes. There were so many people involved in what only seems like a simple process, all of who worked so passionately and flawlessly that it seemed like a stage with magicians working their magic and charming the entire country (and several other countries as a bonus) in the process. We also broke the internet when Aishwarya Rai Bachchan walked the red carpet in a Cinderella dress, with Buzzfeed covering all the ambassadors’ looks!
Looking at the online presence, we wanted to the red carpet looks live to the counter to increase on the ground presence of the campaign. My mentor had called me early one Friday to ask me whether I would be able to execute the whole idea by the weekend. This meant that I had to design the posters, and send them for printing within a weekend, all while I tested the consumers’ reactions to the posters in different counters across Mumbai. I told him that it will be done, and worked for it every waking second of the weekend, thinking about all the elements that need to go into it, and how the sales pitch for it should be made. I was very fortunate to have worked with a mentor who gave me the liberty to build on to the campaign with all my ideas implemented, and before I knew it, the campaign was executed in all counters across India.
Thinking back, I would definitely say that the people’s passion and vision make up an organisation, and when you do what you love, you truly forget the rest of the world and don’t work a day in your life. This is my biggest takeaway from my experience.