By: Emily Montarroyos
Having a cohesive team can make or break any organization. Especially on the Arrowhead Advertising team, where collaboration is one of the cornerstones of their creative process. To transition from surveying and collecting data throughout fall semester to the visionary focus required in the spring, coordination is essential. Arrowhead is composed of six teams that continuously interconnect making it essential for them to communicate seamlessly, as the year leads up to the National Student Advertising Competition (NSAC) in April. From an external perspective, you wouldn’t expect there to be such a variety in team dynamics or pressures they must navigate and resolve.
To acquire more insight into the inner workings of Arrowhead, I had the privilege of interviewing two members of the team and sitting in on a meeting. With multiple group presentations, students were always in discussion about how to fine tune specific ideas, giving honest opinions on demographics, statistics and other areas that would impact the culmination of the campaign. There were group crossovers between both the digital and social teams as well as the public relations and events team that met up to discuss their shared aspects of the campaign.
The leader of the media planning team, Jack McMahon, honed in on the profound depth that advertising has with both the research and creative aspects equally valued. “You have to have the numbers to back it up,” he said, noting the research and use of demographics should answer the why behind all decisions. While Arrowhead is a well put together team of individuals, McMahon had moments of felt “imposter syndrome” especially in the beginning phases. But the media team pushed through and utilized mentors to get up to speed with their assigned areas.
One mentor that the group gained insight from was Dr. Bailey, a media planning professor. McMahon elaborates that having Dr. Bailey as support helped the team in their journey to gaining expertise in this broad area. With her mentorship, the team was given the space to find comfort in the processes and were able to efficiently bring out and use their skills. McMahon relates the confidence that they acquired as team members and newfound peers, emphasizing that their team bond creates a sense of trust and reliability that is essential to success.
Before actually being in Arrowhead, McMahon believed there would be a hierarchy where the Team Captain Leah Solomon would decide what goes or the Creative Director, Eve Larkin. In reality, he said, “We’ve really built a team.” With this assembled community, McMahon said he felt that everyone “lifted me up” and appreciated insights from Solomon, especially with her experience working at Sachs Media. McMahon says it’s this bonding with the team that has enhanced his knowledge in advertising and given him this sense of a true community.
Hayley Thomasson, director of the digital and social team, also went into depth on her experience in Arrowhead, noting how fortunate she felt that “our team has been on the same page from the beginning.” For ideation and social media campaign concepts, she said the team heavily used “braindumps” constantly pushing out ideas from one person to the other honing in on this collaborative aspect.
In a similar sense to McMahon’s experience, Thomasson noted this sensation of being “overwhelming as a whole when you look at it,” and that was felt collectively amongst the team when starting off the campaign. Thomasson combated this notion saying that “taking things week by week” and collaborating brings down this pressure and creates clarity moving forward. These strong group identities with their respective leaders allows the group to go through every step with intention without feeling flustered by every upcoming deadline.
Going through each other’s ideas creates shared understanding and can make up emotionally impactful moments when the team has an aha moment. Thomasson said the moment they landed on one of their core campaign ideas, the euphoria they felt collectively–to be able to take this idea that they had been working on and build upon it, incorporating their differing perspectives and taking it to the next level– was palpable. Having such a talented collective focused on trying to curate the best campaign possible gives the team a great sense of community and confidence, knowing they can lean on each other time and time again–not only within Arrowhead but outside of it as well.
Indeed, Arrowhead’s continuous pushing of boundaries has allowed them to find strength amongst each other and prosper. Their willingness to explore and challenge each other in an environment of mutual respect has fostered a team of individuals who inspire each other to reach greater milestones within themselves. Connection.
—
Emily Montarroyos, a sophomore at FSU pursuing a dual degree in public relations and dietetics, conducted interviews and wrote this article for the team’s blog.