Campbell Mithun’s 2012 Lucky 13 internship may end this week, but two of the eight summer interns—Marlena Jordan-Childress and Michael Santee—will stay as the newest employees in the agency’s Compass Point Media unit. Jordan-Childress is a Chicago native and University of Minnesota graduate; Santee graduated from Drake University and hails from Kansas. They were among the nearly 400 applicants who competed for the internship via a 13-tweet job application that brought eight interns from seven different states (and Guatemala) to Minneapolis for the summer.

“Continued growth of our media business opened up positions for Michael and Marlena, who worked on that team,” said Human Resources Director Debbie Fischer. “Saying goodbye to our summer interns always is tough, and our 2012 Lucky 13ers were another fantastic group of young professionals—we are so thrilled to offer positions to two and wish those who are moving on continued success as they pursue their careers or return to school this fall.”

Of course Jordan-Childress and Santee couldn’t be happier:

“This summer has been the most amazing summer of my life!” said Jordan-Childress. “I gained a great deal of knowledge working alongside an exceptional group of talented individuals and am so fortunate this experience is not coming to an end.”

“I was ecstatic when I got the job offer,” added Santee. “It really is a dream come true that I get to work at Campbell Mithun.”

The 2012 Lucky 13 Summer Experience

Each of the 2012 Lucky 13 interns joined agency account teams in their respective disciplines: art director, copywriter, account management, strategic planning and media. In addition to doing real work for real agency clients such as Land O’Lakes, General Mills, Key Bank, Purina, SuperValu and GreatClips, the interns formed the eight-person team serving Cornerstone, a domestic-violence prevention agency that won the pro bono services via social-media vote conducted by Campbell Mithun in partnership with Greater Twin Cities United Way.

What did the 2012 interns learn? See blog posts by interns Cody Levin and Dennis Bukowski for summaries of their summer experiences, but specific answers to that question are posted below. And in spite of being asked separately, the interns had a common answer, collaboration:

• Laura Fitzpatrick (strategic planning): “Creativity is best fostered by collaboration.”
• Sofia Morales (account management): “Recognizing what each department brings to the table makes one a better account manager, and your team will acknowledge it.”
• Cody Levin (strategic planning): “Collaboration, especially between departments, is crucial to success.”
• Laura Romer (copywriter): “You need to trust each other’s set of skills. The end product will always suffer if you can’t listen and be collaborative.”
• Dennis Bukowski (art director): “It was huge that we had our own project and our success hinged on us working together. You really learn and grow as a team when you mutually invest all you have to offer.”
• Michael Santee (media): “Everyone is full of great ideas.”
• Marlena Jordan-Childress (media): “Not to be afraid to ask questions!”
• Amy Zhong (media): “The importance of being proactive.”

About the Lucky 13 Internship
This summer marked the seventh year Campbell Mithun has run its Lucky 13 Internship program. The internship’s name celebrates the agency’s history and culture. Though conventional wisdom finds 13 an unlucky number for some, Ray Mithun, Co-Founder of Campbell Mithun, once said, “If 13 is unlucky for some people, it must be lucky for someone else.” The Lucky 13 Internship program seeks to find those individuals who can be someone else—those who have the courage to go against the grain and to believe in original ideas and creative solutions.

Campbell Mithun moved the Lucky 13 application process to Twitter in 2011, and in 2012 attracted 380 applicants from 33 states, 16 countries and 103 colleges/universities. During the 13-day application window, more than 4,400 #L13 tweets were posted; a team of more than 20 agency employees monitored and responded to the applicants.

About Campbell Mithun
Since its founding in 1933, Campbell Mithun has established a national brand-building reputation in the consumer packaged goods, retail, healthcare, financial services and telecommunications sectors and serves clients including Chipotle, General Mills, Great Clips, Land O’Lakes, Popeyes, Schwan’s, SuperValu and Toro. Its Compass Point Media unit, established in 1976, integrates strategic planning, tactical planning and negotiation to maximize media impact and minimize costs for both media-only and shared Campbell Mithun clients.

Campbell Mithun has created client marketplace success for 79 years guided by Ray Mithun’s founding philosophy: create client success by making Everything Talk at each point of customer contact.

Web sites: www.cmithun.com; www.compasspoint-media.com; www.lucky13internship.com