When Zulu Alpha Kilo began a campaign to encourage businesses to pay student interns, it put the brief out to students. Advertising & marketing communications professor at Humber College at the time, Robin Heisey had reached out to Zulu Alpha Kilo’s founder, Zak Mroueh, about the students coming into the agency to work on a real brief.
“We love this campaign because the original nugget was ideated and created with students (who we paid for the effort) and it so clearly exemplifies the absurdity behind some of the ways companies justify “paying” their interns. Our hope with this work is it will help dramatically reduce the 41% of internships that are still unpaid,” Zulu Alpha Kilo stated.
The project was four years in the making. (The project was put on hold once the pandemic hit.) Earlier this year, the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) released a position statement that calls for all internships to be paid. Now, the association is broadening that message to the general public through the “Unpaid Is Unfair” campaign. The impetus to call for an end to unpaid internships grew out of NACE’s research findings, according to Shawn VanDerziel, NACE executive director.
The campaign, Unpaid is Unfair, includes six videos and a collection of posters. In the videos, the unpaid intern attempts to use non-monetary items she “earned”— swag like an agency mug, leftover bagels from the boardroom, a reference letter, and “valuable job experience”— in place of money at different establishments from a clothing store to a grocery store. The videos highlight the absurdity of unpaid, hard-working student interns trying to afford life’s necessities like groceries and rent. Zulu Alpha Kilo Mroueh chief creative officer and director got behind the camera directing all six videos through the agency’s in-house production arm, Zulubot.
The short video below tells the story and shows the students at work on this back in 2019.
The campaign was brought together by Zulu Alpha Kilo’s Toronto and New York offices for the US and North American market.
The ZAK team was really impressed by the determination and initiative of the students. “They came up with dozens of ideas, but one idea from Brooke Charlinski and Joel Gerrity was a clear winner,” Mroueh commented.
“It was amazing to see the students inside an agency environment,” Heisey added.
VanDerziel commented, “We’ve found that paid internships provide college students with an important avenue to their first job. In our most recent study, we found that paid interns averaged 1.4 job offers while unpaid interns averaged less than one. We’ve also found that paid interns get higher starting salaries than unpaid interns in their initial jobs.” He added that, In addition, “students who engage in unpaid internships must forgo an income—that’s a hardship for many students. All work deserves to be paid.” NACE’s current research shows that approximately 41% of internships are unpaid.
“Many industries, not just advertising, have normalised unpaid internships and it’s not good for employers or future employees,” added Tim Gordon, chief creative officer & partner of Zulu Alpha Kilo New York. “We hope this helps spread the word that if you are running a business or in a hiring position, you should advocate for and help ensure all internship positions are paid.”
paid internships benefit employers, too, VanDerziel, noted, “Paid internship programs serve as an effective pipeline for entry-level talent for full-time positions. The data also show that employees who have been paid interns have higher retention rates than unpaid interns or those who have never participated in an internship.”
Zulu Alpha Kilo has been a champion of NACE’s values that all work deserves to be paid for quite some time. Since 2017, ZAK’s employeeship program has given graduates the chance to forgo an internship all together. Selected applicants are invited to participate in a paid full-day creative bootcamp where they are taught, mentored, and interviewed by a panel from the agency. The top performers are hired on the spot with a starting salary of $50,000. No internship required. Anyone who has ever been an unpaid intern will also be given the chance to enter a contest to win all the objects featured in the videos—and each piece of swag includes a QR code that can convert the item into a real payday (US$250).
One of the students who participated in the campaign in 2019, Laura Biggar, became a full-time writer at ZAK and worked on bringing the final campaign to life. “I can’t believe this idea started as a scribble on a page nearly four-years ago. It’s been so rewarding to see it finally executed and shared with the world,” she stated
“It’s the beginning of a new school year when companies and students are in the early stages of planning for internships in the months ahead—it’s time we retire the idea of unpaid internships once and for all,” added Mroueh.
Unpaid is Unfair will be running on social channels including YouTube, TikTok, LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.
Credits:
Client: National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE)
Agency: Zulu Alpha Kilo
Clients: Shawn VanDerziel, Joshua Kahn, Mimi Collins
CCO & Director: Zak Mroueh
CCO: Tim Gordon
CMO: Christine McNab
Creative Directors: Vic Bath & Dan Cummings
Design Director: Dejan Djuric
ACD: Andrea Por
Art Directors: Erin Rodness, Brook Charlinski, Joel Gerrity, Julia Kluga, Samantha Beauchamp
Writers: Laura Biggar, Joel Gerrity, Brook Charlinski, Kiana Robson, Nuala Murray, Jamie Galloway
Executive Strategy Director: Sean Bell
Account Team: Robin Scott, Christina Hill, Abigail Joy
Communications Director: Kelly Flynn
Production house: Zulubot
Producer: Colleen Allen
Assistant Producer: Amy Groll
Executive Producer: Adam Palmer
Director of Photography: Adam Griffiths
Second Camera: Kyle Chappell
Editor: Max Lawlor
Online: Felipe Chaparro
Colourist: Can Yuksel
Audio Engineer: Noah Mroueh
Casting: Mann Casting
Actor: Rachel Manson
