Maddie was never one to follow the herd, so an apprenticeship at Bountiful Cow was the perfect choice.
Maddie Turner, 20, from Essex has been at Bountiful Cow for two years. Her career before that was quite simple, a pub job on the side as she finished school. She describes herself with more than a hint of irony, in her drole fashion as an “academic weapon.”
The daughter of an engineer father and part-time hairdresser, part-time vicar mother from Raleigh, Essex, Maddie got plenty of offers for university with soaring A Level grades. But at 18, she knew that one of those places was not the right choice for her.
She applied for numerous jobs with mixed levels of success, and when she stumbled across Bountiful Cow’s apprenticeship scheme, initially had no idea what media was.
“I wasn’t sure until about three months in,” she laughs, sheepishly.
“I saw the deadline for the apprenticeship scheme the day before and thought, yeah, alright,” she explains.
At just 18 she was one of the youngest applicants there and felt very overwhelmed, venturing to the office in central London, unsure what she was really going into. She got a call the next day to say she had got it, to her surprise.
She was not the first in the family to do an apprenticeship, her brother had gone into the trades through a similar scheme before her, but now she was heading into a career she had no idea about all hinged on one word: media.
“I saw ‘media’ and thought that sounded creative, it sounded fun. It was nothing like I expected but was creative and fun in a completely different way.”
Maddie had always been creative, smashing her art GCSE, and still paints and draws in the evenings and on weekends, so couldn’t resist the lure of working in the industry that creates culture and intersects so many artistic specialisms.
Now, two years into her career in advertising, she is a senior digital exec, specialising in paid media. While a couple of years ago she may have known the meaning of each of those words but have no idea how they fit together, she has become an important part of the Bountiful Cow outfit.
“This was not what I expected but it is fun and creative in its own way. I do lots of presenting, reporting, client-facing stuff. When I go home and explain that I’ve been at a client lunch to my mum and dad I think they wonder if I actually do any work,” she laughs.
Despite her early confusion about what media actually is, she quickly picked up the skills she needed, using her confidence from a part-time hospitality job to then take on client meetings, which at first were very nerve-wracking with ease. Bountiful Cow being such a small agency means there is a lot of close contact with clients and colleagues who can help one another learn and grow, and really get to grips with the most important skills needed to thrive.
“It’s all about jumping in and trying to pick things up quickly. This industry moves so fast but even if you have no prior knowledge, just coming in and trying will help you become an important asset to the team.”
And the team is one of the highlights of agency life for Maddie. The group of apprentices she is a part of are the heart of the agency, social, confident and engaging and the whole team comes together regularly for socials, supporting one another in big wins, and just being good mates while learning together too.
“There is no one on the team I wouldn’t go for a pint with,” Maddie laughs.
Her days behind the bar still creep into her day to day as she is most proud of her work with client Tequila Rose and the brand uplift and awareness the team has been able to collaborate to create.
“It’s so Relative Advantage, isn’t it. There is so much dull media, so much we don’t think about or remember. It’s amazing when something does pop out, and we have done that.”
Let’s raise a baby pink shot glass to that, and the success of Maddie and all of our apprentices as Bountiful Cow continues to grow.
Words by: Imy Brighty-Potts
