A Day in the Life of a Summer Intern: Wrath of Cannes Version

By Kiran Aditham 

So, our little seasonal trial run continues as we bring you another installment from a summer advertising/marketing intern. This time, we pass the mic to NYU senior Christina Riggio (pictured) who’s been toiling away on the account management side at New York-based agency Woods Witt Dealy & Sons, which happens to be responsible for the annual Wrath of Cannes events. Here’s a look at Riggio’s experience from this year’s soiree, drunken designing included.

One of our first projects as interns was to spearhead a yearly event called Wrath of Cannes, the agencies’ spit-take of the Cannes Festival. But this year, WWD&S was so busy they had put no thought into Wrath of Cannes, until two weeks before the event. It fell to the interns to make this event a success.

Every year, the creative team designs a new logo for the Wrath of Cannes t-shirts. We were all excited to see the creative team in action. The day of the event, we were nominated to go pick up the t-shirt order for the event. Sounds easy enough. But when we got there we realized the address given to us was a pawnshop. The cashier told us to enter at the unmarked door around the corner—say what? When we went around the corner, a strange man stumbled out of the door mumbling about t-shirts.

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Our first thought should have been to run, but being the hard-working interns we are, we decided to follow him into the building! He led us, shakily, up the stairs to what can only be described as a souk within an apartment building. After what felt like a lifetime, we found our order, grabbed the bags and ran out of there! We descended into the depths of the subway carrying huge garbage bags filled with the fruits of our labor. Victory.

When we got back to the office we tore the bags open to see the design. Oh no! The t-shirts were blank. The other intern glanced nervously at me. Are we going to be fired for this? I picked up a t-shirt and entered the Creative Directors’, Harry and Gill’s, office, with my tail between my legs. But amusement crossed their faces when I told them the news. The joke was on us– this year, the interns would be hand drawing the logo onto the t-shirts at the party.

We spent the night in the back room with sharpie markers and those white t-shirts, stenciling drunken stick figures spilling beers on themselves with the words “Wrath of Cannes 6” across the bottom. As we began indulging in the open bar, we threw away the stencil and began doodling freehand. This is a t-shirt I made 5 gin and tonics deep:

Pretty good, don’t you think?

 

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