The Martin Hall Agency offers Reed College of Media students professional agency experience by servicing real world clients. Students learn how to manage client accounts, develop, and execute strategic communication campaigns built upon market research and executed through innovative strategies. Students learn how to both lead and follow in a hierarchical team-focused setting that mimics today’s worldwide agencies. By the time our students finish the MHA capstone experience, each are ready to hit the ground running in any agency around the globe.
Spring Semester 2019
The fall semester was the first semester that the Martin Hall Agency returned to campus in the Reed College of Media.
During this time our goal was to create an agency for future students to be able to gain real client experience in a team-based setting like the real industry. Everyone in the agency played a role in producing the work that came out of the agency.
During this semester we served 4 clients who were local to the Morgantown area. The four clients were Habitat for Humanity, BOPARC, Black Bear Burrito, and the agency itself, MHA.
By the end of the semester were able to produce deliverable work that met all our client’s needs. We were also excited to hear that the course was expanding to allow more students to be a part of the agency in the fall semester.
Executive Director of Public Relations
During this semester I served as one of the two executive directors of the agency. My job was to coordinate with my partner Lydia Owens, Executive Director of Advertising, to make sure all agency tasks were carried out as well as facilitate collaborative thinking among my peers.
I also met with both professors for MHA and our clients on a regular basis to ensure goals and task matched with their expectations. Leading and working with everyone in the agency helped me grow into feeling more confident about the work I was producing.
By the end of the semester, I knew that working for an agency in the future was my goal. So much great work came out of MHA in just one semester and inspired me to always push the envelope on all my creative projects in the future.
Fall Semester 2019
I returned for a second semester in the fall to MHA and was able to take the course as my capstone experience. This semester the agency was able to grow from the previous one and were able to take on additional clients and projects.
This semester our clients were, WVU Mining/Natural Resource Department, West Virginia Public Education Coalition (WVPEC), the City of Morgantown’s Recycling division: Green Team, Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC): Sports Division, and the Martin Hall Agency (MHA).
In addition to serving more clients, the agencies this semester was able to coordinate and put on a campus wide event about the importance & advocacy for our 1st Amendment Right as students.
Watch a highlight video created by me of the event in my Video Projects section of my website.
Digital Director
During this semester, I served as the digital director for the agency. As our agency grew so did our online presence and more specialist positions were created to handle the new workload for this semester.
My duties included to manage our web and social team members to ensure that our agencies and client’s needs were met. This semester MHA was able to build a brand new website and rebrand our social media accounts to fit our new image back on campus. View our website HERE.
In addition to MHA’s digital growth, the client I was invested the most with throughout the semester was WVPEC. Their need was to create a new podcast for their target audience, and I was tasked with crafting a digital strategy for when the podcast went live online.
Coming up with a full digital plan to attract new listeners to their podcast put me outside of my comfort zone but educated me on how to gain an audience using analytics and social media strategy.
Award Winning Agency
This semester we were lucky to receive four AAF WV ADDY Awards in the student category, three Silver Addy and one Gold Addy. The big winner was our campus wide event, First Amendment Day that one best campaign and consumer campaign.
Since the Martin Hall Agency has only been back on campus for only two semesters, these awards show as testimonies of our progress and future as an agency in the Reed College of Media.