Frances Hanson is the successful Global Director for Ogilvy Consulting. While currently in New York City, her journey in the advertising industry began at Florida State University where she was a part of the Arrowhead Advertising Team. A few weeks ago, Hanson zoomed in to talk to the current team about her advertising experiences that led to her impressive position today, as well as offer great advice for life after Arrowhead.
An advertising major at FSU with a minor in editing, writing, and media, Hanson joined the Arrowhead Secondary Research team for their client, Tai Pei. The following year, she moved up to Strategy Director, where she was able to dip into copy, secondary research, and media. The data analytics from Arrowhead piqued her interest, and she went on to teach herself coding, which exposed her to a whole new side of the industry.
“Take advantage of not having a set spot,” Hanson said to the 2023-2024 team, urging students to try everything and broaden their skills to be more of an asset in their future careers.
Outside of Arrowhead, Hanson first had an internship for Optimus, a production house in Chicago. This was her “foot in the door” job – while she was washing dishes and bringing food to client meetings, her positive outlook was incredibly important. The next summer, Hanson earned an Account Management internship with Ogilvy. “I worked as hard as I could, I wasn’t going to give anyone a reason not to hire me back after the end of the summer,” She said when asked about the best advice going into the internship process.
After her internship, Hanson was hired at Ogilvy full-time in their rotational management program, going through different agency departments like Social Strategy, Brand Strategy, New Business, and ultimately, securing a position as a Data Analyst. Through this role, she wrote code to pull mass amounts of data from Google, building data visualization models to project clients’ KPIs, among other projects.
“Be okay with the discomfort of getting your foot in the door in a temporary role, while finding out what you truly enjoy,” Hanson said, speaking about her shift into a Global Consulting role at Ogilvy after two years. She liked that the group answered the big questions like “What direction do we take this brand?” Additionally, she enjoyed that the new role incorporated a lot of what she liked from Arrowhead.
Her favorite project at Ogilvy so far was for Samsung, where she aided in writing a new strategy to win over Gen Alpha. The finished product was a campaign about planning for a healthy relationship between parents, kids, and technology.
At the end of the Zoom, they shifted to a Q and A, where Hanson was a valued resource for Arrowhead students on the brink of job/internship applications as well as graduation. Her top pieces of advice were as follows:
Working in this industry in a big city, like NYC, Chicago, etc.
“Build out realistic expenses for the city, what would be left over, and would that let me live the lifestyle I want to live? Don’t stress about saving what everyone else is saving. Save what you need and have fun where you can.”
Advice for standing out in job applications
“Real people are reading your application essays, so showcase your creativity and personality.”
Important skills in industry to be successful
“Be trustworthy and reliable on deliverables. When your direct manager gives you a task, put everything else aside because they are deciding your pay, PTO, promotions, etc. Think one step ahead, and provide an update/progress report ahead of time.” Hanson also noted a few hard skills such as, “building decks, proficient in Google Slides, PowerPoint, and Keynote, which are all so important in day to day in this industry.”
Advice to prepare for the competition in April
“Have fun together with your team! Support and give the four presenters a lot of love and help them where you can.”
The Arrowhead team was thankful to find such a kind and open resource in Frances Hanson, learning how important it is to stay determined and open-minded in this industry. Now a Global Director for Ogilvy Consulting, in New York, “this format [arrowhead campaign development] was what prepared me with the confidence to say “I can take this on” [agency projects]’
We look forward to watching her continued success and always love catching up with an Arrowhead alumnus.
“I would not be where I am without Arrowhead and the peers I got to work with there. This was my favorite part of the college experience and I’m so grateful to have worked in such a great group!”
