That’s right you lovely lot, it’s time for us to share the fabulous video entries we’ve received as part of Research Through Gaming’s ‘Vine Competition’. Thanks to everyone who entered – it’s certainly going to be a tough one for the judging panel to call!

So without further ado, in no particular order, here are the 6 second little beauties:

• Join the Dots.
  ‘Promo’ category: Watch Now
• Karen Schofield of Join the Dots.
  No Category. ‘Kev the Parrot’: Watch Now
• Chris Panetta of Widmeyer Communications.
  No Category. “Negative correlation between M&M’s & Focus Group notes”: Watch Now
• Carrot Intelligence.
  ‘Promo’ category: Watch Now
• Vibhor Pandey of Metrix Consulting.
  No Category: Watch Now
• Chris Dowsett.
  No Category. “The future of #mrx lies in better integration with other insights partners”: Watch Now 

Pretty impressive entries we think you’ll agree!

We would love to know your thoughts on these fab videos.
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It’s been just over 3 months since I joined the team here at Face Facts (wow, that went quickly!) and sadly, it’s time for me to move on. My internship here has been fantastic and I leave knowing that my time here has certainly been worthwhile.

As one of my final blogs (I know, sad isn’t it?), I feel that I should share my thoughts and experiences of life here as a Face Facts intern.

A little background info

After finishing university, leaving with a degree in Marketing Management, I realised that I needed a helping hand to get my career started. I moved back to Leeds (free food and full cleaning service at the Mum & Dad hotel) and began the dreaded job search. There were many vacant Marketing positions in West Yorkshire and I spent hours sending off application after application. The problem was, so did thousands of other qualified graduates. I had some relevant experience on my C.V but certainly not enough to impress most potential employers. I was really struggling.

It was time to do something about it.

Could this be for me?

In early November 2012 I was asked to interview for the intern position at Face Facts Research (the call coming less than an hour after sending the application – no messing about at this company!), so I gathered examples of my work, prepared a fresh cover letter and checked my C.V.

Jen and Luke (our Marketing dream team) interviewed me and must have seen something they liked, as I was offered the position less than a week later. Hurray!

Settling in

My first week was great. I, along with another new starter, Charlie, was made to feel more than welcome by the staff and we had no problem fitting into the Face Facts way of life.

After a day or two of the usual new job activities (setting up a new laptop, locating the tea bags, getting people’s names wrong etc.) we were soon into the full swing of things.

My first ‘major’ task as a Marketing intern involved travelling to Leeds University to talk to students about our company’s new graduate initiative – the Face Facts Grad School. The event was a lot of fun and I discovered that I was much better at face-to-face selling (though this technically wasn’t ‘selling’) than I had previously thought. My colleague insists that this new found confidence was particularly apparent when female students drifted towards our stall – I’m saying nothing.

The next few weeks flew by and we found ourselves involved with a variety of tasks. We were blogging, researching, designing, social media-ing – we did all sorts! Each day provided a different task or offered a new challenge, meaning there was very rarely a dull moment.

The best bits

There are a few things which I found particularly enjoyable. The first conferencing event at Leeds Uni was great (not just because I got to eat loads of sweets). Preparing the Christmas video was fantastic and possibly one of the funniest things I’ve ever had to do. But I think the task that I’ve found most  enjoyable is blogging. I’ve always loved writing and had dabbled in blogging before but I’d never needed to produce regular content that’s both interesting and engaging to a large audience.

I blogged about a number of topics and discovered areas of Research and Marketing that I’d never encountered before. Data visualisation, the psychology of introversion and Neuromarketing, to name but a few, were subjects that I thoroughly enjoyed learning about and then being able to share my opinions on each of them. There’s something extremely satisfying about writing a blog you’re proud of and then receiving great feedback from industry professionals (it’s also a fantastic boost to the ego!).

Was it worth it?

In a word – definitely.

I come away from my Face Facts experience knowing that I now possess some real knowledge about the industry and a set of skills that will help me succeed in any future work I do. When I next go for an interview or meet a potential employer, I can now proudly and confidently provide examples of my work and demonstrate my Marketing abilities.

With a far more impressive C.V and much improved knowledge of the industry, I can say that three months at Face Facts Research has been a fantastic and worthwhile experience for me.

Many aching and exhausted postmen must be thinking “thank goodness that’s over for another 12 months!” We certainly put the delivery folk through their paces this year with our Face Facts Valentine’s gift boxes!

To show our clients just how much we adore them, we put together a little Valentine’s gift for each of them, packed with some of our favourite sweeties and a little message from the team here at Face Facts Towers.

Drumstick lollies, jawbreakers, refreshers… we had the lot!

I would love to tell you that we weren’t tempted to scoff all the goodies ourselves, but that would be a total lie. I’d like to tell you that the staff didn’t regularly pop up to the Marketing Department and help themselves to a handful of sweets, but that would be an even bigger lie. No, the truth is that once the sweets were out in the open it was like watching a tank of hungry piranhas devour a juicy piece of meat.

Fortunately there were enough sweets left to produce some fabulous Valentine’s boxes. It was a lot of fun creating the packages and we hope that everyone enjoys the contents (or what’s left of them).

P.S – Please don’t blame your next dentist bill on us!