By Ally Havenridge
During my time as the communications and compliance Intern at FNIC Trusted Insurance Advisors, I’ve gained opportunities for professional development such as On Brand. This conference, sponsored by PRSA Nebraska, AAF Nebraska, AMA Lincoln, AMA Omaha and PRSA Nebraska, gave me an amazing chance to network with local professionals. I learned about unfamiliar concepts through different keynote and breakout sessions.
One breakout session titled “Community Conversations: Advertising with a Purpose,” featured a panel that discussed how to develop purpose-driven communications. The panel urged support for voices of community members who are largely silenced. Norberto (Rob) Ayala-Flores described his experience when interviewing the local Latino community as he pointed out how the growing Latino market is not homogeneous.
He says to communicate a culture means that you should understand the culture, and to understand the culture you must listen to the people from that culture. Only by doing so can you truly stay mindful of the cultural differences that do exist, and this will help you campaign to be more well-received by your audiences.
During another breakout session, “What’s Your Type,” Sean Flattery, creative director at Eleanor, stressed the importance of understanding what messages that fonts communicate, saying every font has a personality. After receiving a crash course on typography, Flattery showed us examples on when fonts do or do not match their messages. For example, if you were to use Comic Sans to say, “I’m sorry about your illness,” the font seems to have a more silly personality than what is being communicated. Flattery made the session so educational and engaging that I walked out of the room feeling like an expert in typography.
Through these experiences and more, I gained insight from locally and nationally recognized professionals and earned valuable networking connections. I’m looking
forward to attending the conference next year, with hopefully even more experience under my belt.