Still, the induction week gave us a fair idea of what the company was all about. And for me, it kept getting more exciting as these were products that I had grown up loving. Dairy Milk, 5 Star, Toblerone, Tang, Bournvita, Oreo! The list went on and on. It still hadn’t quite sunk in that I would be working, for the next two months, in the land of chocolates and sugar and spice and everything nice. If only I could go back 10 years and tell myself, there is hope for me after all!
I was assigned a technology based marketing project which focussed on the point of buying. Why and how, you ask. Well, during one of the sessions the Media manager had asked who all were geeks. And I had honesty beaten into me early on by my mother, as I was lying about playing Pokemon all day long on my GameBoy Advance. So I raised my hand. I’m not sure why I was surprised that nobody else did. Geeks aren’t cool after all, or are they?
The project began in earnest soon enough. I was given a pile of research to do, so I sifted through tons of information on the Internet while nestled in the sweet embrace of a beanbag that slowly learned the precise shape of my behind. I felt occasional pangs of guilt and pity for the interns who spent days in the Mumbai heat and humidity, running from pillar to post. But one trip to the coffee machine with the free Oreos hushed those pangs right up. I was living the good life.
Thanks to my father, I had a bike that I used to commute to office. Staying in south Mumbai, or SoBo or SoMu as it is called, was an experience in itself. I spent a lot of time just biking around, with Google Maps and friends’ suggestions as my only guides. I’d never really liked Mumbai before, but even I had to admit that I was slowly falling prey to the charms of the city.
All interns that worked in the HQ were seated in a common area, which made for really fun interactions with some extremely interesting people. I quickly fell into place with similarly whacky folks, and every day started becoming an experience. It was easily the most enjoyable part of my internship, and one that’s given me something exceedingly precious, a bunch of lifelong friends.
The two months got over in a flurry of fun, work and fun work. I have to admit, thanks to my mentor and guides, my project had nary a glitch. There were some extremely challenging aspects as I was ideating on a field that was almost a blue ocean. But when I got the green light to launch a pilot, I felt it was all worth it. As for learnings, we all took away something different thanks to the diverse projects Mondelez assigned each one of us. For me, it was threefold.
- Hard work and fun can go together. But, in that order.
- The people at Mondelez are truly exceptional and friendly and helpful.
- There can be love in the time of Cadbury.
That, my friends, was a brief recap of my internship. Peace.
- Eeshaan Bajpai
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